Bring You Back
by XrhiaX
Summary: Two years ago, Republic City fell at the feet of Amon and his Equalists. The Avatar, after losing her bending, disappeared and is presumed dead, though she left to escape the shame of her failure, but a young firebender is determined to bring her back.
1. Prologue

Korra wasn't sure what parts of what she saw was real; she could feel the cold on her skin, but she saw herself standing before an open pyre of burning bodies; benders, all of them. Most were pro-benders she'd played against in the ring, but others were famous benders like the new Fire Lord, and Chief Bei Fong. She flung her arms around herself and stepped backward.

Straight into someone standing behind her.

A sharp gasp escaped her and she spun on her heel, only to see a tall figure standing there, a hand reaching for her head. The firelight glared right up into the figure's hood and illuminated their mask. Light glinted in malevolent eyes, gleaming with hatred. Korra stepped back, away from the hand, her own eyes staring, and stumbled right into the fire. The pyre came alive under her, and she was still cold, but screaming. Charred, skinless arms grasped for her, and Amon watched.

As soon as she was aware she was about to scream aloud, Korra caught the beginnings of a shout in her throat, her fingers gripping the straw under her head. Her blue eyes snapped open and she pushed herself up from her position lying on her stomach, sweating, breathing hard. Just a dream. Just another stupid dream. She rolled to her back and sat up, hands wiping wet hair away from her forehead.

It was just a dream. All that was long way away. Long ago; not forgotten, but long, long ago.

She peered around with narrowed eyes at the hayloft she resided in these days; on a quiet farm in the more docile part of the United Republic, and her favorite part, miles and miles away from Republic City. The sun was peering in through cracks in the wooden, panel walls of the barn, and a warm summer breeze was rolling through, causing the hay and straw to crackle against it. Korra wiped her face and climbed to her feet, dusting straw from her clothes and wandering to the ladder down to the ground floor.

Korra was greeted by the sight of Naga, stretched out on her back in the dirt, and she grumbled inwardly at the thought that she'd have to brush her clean later on; keeping Naga clean had always been so much easier with Waterbending. Just like keeping warm hadn't been a problem with firebending on hand. And rockslides - pfft, no problem! Naga rolled onto her belly and fixed canine eyes on the pitiful excuse for an Avatar, no semblance of resentment in her gaze.

She loved that about Naga; even though she had failed the whole damn world, Naga would always be there, happy to see her.

Korra grinned and marched up to Naga. "Morning, Naga," she said cheerfully, before flinging herself at the beast and leaping onto her, hands clutching fur and feet digging in to hold on. Naga got up to her feet, Korra still holding on, now giggling, and shook herself off. Korra finally fell off, into the dirt, and grinned up at Naga, who proceeded to lick her face. Laughing, Korra pushed the animal off her. There was something reassuring about Naga's constant, unchanging companionship.

"You gonna mess around with that animal all day, kid?" came a raspy voice from the barn door. A hunched, thin man was leaning in the doorway, the sun hitting him from behind and casting a dark shadow over his kind eyes. Korra looked up from her spot on the floor with an awkward smile at the old man, who only smiled back.

Korra coughed a laugh and got up, patting dirt from her gray work shirt. "Sorry, Chung," she smiled ruefully. "How's your back treating you today?" Korra asked, approaching him.

Chung would've shrugged vaguely, if his back weren't extremely painful today. He gave a weak smile and tried to stand straight. "Being a pain again," he admitted reluctantly.

Korra sighed, still smiling. "You shouldn't have come all the way out here. I'm already up for once," she gestured to herself with both hands. "Come on, I'll help you back to the house," she put a hand on his shoulder.

Chung laughed and batted her away. "Never mind that, kiddo; just get started on that back field, will you?" he shook his head, "It's a perfect day for it, and I'll get to the house fine on my own."

Korra rolled her eyes, passing him and heading out into the sun. "You sure?"

"A'm sure," he waved a hand dismissively, "Now get to work, y'lazy pain in the behind!"

With a laugh, the failed Avatar turned and plodded toward the field, waiting until she was sure Chung wasn't in Naga's path to call over her shoulder, "Naga, come on, we got work to do!" glancing back in a teasing, scolding tone. She caught sight of the animal guide begrudgingly getting up from a warm spot in the sun and walking sulkily after her. Naga hated the sun, for the most part, and working didn't help. When Naga caught up to her, Korra added, "We'll go down to the lake later on, alright?" putting a hand to the beast's neck.

Naga whined, annoyed.

Korra hooked up Naga to the cart, led her to the back field - a large expanse of five open acres, grown three feet with golden wheat - grabbed the machete from the cart, and set about slicing the first row of the crop down. She grabbed the top six inches of a bunch of stalks and swung the blade against the bottom of it. It split from its root and came away without problem; Korra tossed the crop into the cart.

* * *

_Korra blinked her eyes open, to fix them on a face staring down at her. "Tenzin?" she murmured, before her eyes focused and she saw the airbender clearly. Her mind spun and her stomach lurched, and she felt like a sack of bricks. She was weak - she didn't even have the strength to lift her arms, but she still tried; to try to wipe her face, where tears were dried. "What's … what happened?" she glanced around quickly; there was a cool breeze against her burning, feverish skin, and above, she could see a red night sky._

_Tenzin suddenly pulled Korra into a relieved hug - something very unlike him to do - and exhaled a heavy breath. "You're all right," he stated thickly, more to himself than to her._

_Korra's eyes stayed open, defying heavy eyelids, and she shook her head quickly. "N-no," she said groggily. "No, my bending," she continued weakly._

_Because it was gone. This time, her bending was really gone. Just like Mako and Bolin; Amon had taken her bending, killed her friends, and attacked the council in their homes. The city was under attack. She suddenly felt the urge to get up and do something, but she was too weak._

_Tenzin held her at arm's length again. "What?" he snapped, the warmth in his voice dissipating for a moment, "He … he took it?"_

_Korra blinked slowly at him, and then forced a sluggish nod. "It's gone," she answered, exhaustion kicking in. She felt oddly relieved that it was gone - like a weight had come off her shoulders. Like she didn't have to worry about it anymore, like it wasn't her problem. Consciously, she might have known that was a horrible to think, and ridiculously selfish. She had nothing to lose anymore._

_She felt a twisting in her chest at the thought of Bolin falling from Amon's airship, and the memory of Mako screaming out, hands clutching at the railing. "BOLIN!" he had shrieked, so loud Korra had been sure he'd make his throat bleed. Over and over. And Bolin, screaming back. Korra felt her stomach lurch again._

"_Bolin," she breathed out. Bolin was dead because she'd roped the brothers into her fight with Amon. "Bolin, Bolin," she repeated with a shallow breath, her brows tilting and her face screwing up. She couldn't breathe - couldn't bend, couldn't feel anything._

'_This is all your fault! You did this!' Mako had yelled, roughly grabbing her by the cloth of her shirt. And she'd been too stunned and scared and lost to answer. She'd even stared at him as electric rods stabbed him in the back and his eyes went wide, his lungs spitting out a horrified, painful gasp._

_Korra was breathing hard, crying now. "No, no," she gasped, a lump in her throat._

_She failed them. Failed everyone._

* * *

Korra furrowed her brow, pushing away thoughts of her failure in Republic City. That was in the past now; years had long gone since all that. She wasn't the Avatar anymore. She was just that nice kid that worked for Old Chung, in a small, remote town in the United Republic outlands. She couldn't fail at this. She chopped at the last stem of wheat and piled it onto the cart, before turning and admiring her work. The five acres was hand-chopped, and now a bald field ready to be fed to Chung's ostrich-horses.

Naga gave a grumble and turned her head up to see the high afternoon sun overhead.

Korra grasped Naga's fur and swung herself up to the polar-bear dog's back. "Come on, Naga. Back to the barn."

They pulled the cart back to the barn, left it inside - she'd bale it later - and separated Naga from the cart. The two decided it was time for a break and set off across the yard and down the road. Korra went on foot, having gotten rid of Naga's saddle long ago; too many memories of too many good times that it hurt to remember. Naga would occasionally stop and sniff the ground for scents of people already traveled on this road, but eventually, the two wound up overlooking a large lake of glistening green-blue.

Korra was reminded of Republic City Public Park, and her stomach twisted, as it always did. Naga went straight for the water, splashing in and burying her face in the blue, searching for fish. Korra approached much more tentatively, exhaling nostalgically and pulling off her green tunic and peeling off her flat shoes. She wondered what her parents were doing these days.

They probably missed her, but she couldn't have gone back to the South Pole. The White Lotus were there and they'd have her on a useless, soul-searching journey in a heartbeat if they found her. Sometimes a person just needed to disappear. This was Korra's solution to her shame in Republic City. Having her bending taken away and being strung up in the middle of city hall, helpless, for Tenzin to find her …

Korra didn't think there was any kind of shame worse than that.

She couldn't escape her own image in that helpless, weak, pathetic state, in the newspapers. It had echoed around the world for months after her defeat. She was happy it was gone now. The worst thing now was when people wrote about the missing Avatar in the papers. Some likened it to Aang's disappearance before emerging to defeat the Fire Nation. Others simply wished her ill.

Most people fell to the latter of the two.

Korra could remember the latest Avatar Korra headline. _'Avatar Korra gone for two years now; politicians cry 'Suicide'!'_

Ha. She'd read the whole damned article, too. People wanted her to kill herself, so they could have an Avatar who could bend. They cried out for her to _'do the right thing for the world' _and she really nearly considered it. But death was just far too easy an escape for her; she didn't even deserve the blissful nothingness of death. Not that she'd ever have the guts to go for killing herself.

She was so damned weak, and pathetic. It made her sick.

Korra stepped into the water.

* * *

_Mako's lips ghosted over her collarbone and she wound her fingers into his hair. Korra tilted her head back at the way he pushed into her, gasping out. Her back arched and her toes curled, and she held onto him for dear life. She cried his name into the darkness, her senses overtaken by the smell of his skin, and the sound of his breaths; the sensation of his hands on her body._

_He uttered her name against her skin, and wrapped the sheet into his palm to keep himself from clawing his fingernails into her when she tensed around him; to keep himself from clutching her too tightly, to make sure he didn't hurt her when his own body responded with an uncontrollable wave of sensation._

_The two collapsed into one another and hit the softness of the bed, breathing hard. Korra laid her cheek against his chest, her eyes falling shut. Mako placed his hand on her head and stroked her hair with his thumb. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he exhaled, "You are amazing," with a slight chuckle to his voice._

_Korra gave an amused sigh. "Me? You did all the work," she poked her fingertip into a spot just under his ribs._

_Mako winced a little, pushing her jabbing finger out of his rib. "That's not what I mean," he reached up to wipe his sweaty brow, "I mean …" he searched for his words - perhaps he just wanted to give her praise, or say something in the heat of the mood, but there was something he wanted to say - with his fingers slipping through her hair where it rest on her bare back, "I mean I don't think I could be like this with anyone but you," he finished awkwardly._

_Korra grinned slowly. "Are you saying you love me?" she asked quietly._

_Mako was silent for the longest time - to the point that Korra almost thought she'd said something extremely tactless and stupid - but when he responded, it was with a happy feeling in his middle that he couldn't place. "I think I am," he answered, smiling._

_Korra's first inclination was to say the same, but instead she found herself worried. Without even thinking, she looked up to his face, brows tilting upward. "Would you still love me if I wasn't the Avatar?" she queried in a small voice. "If I wasn't …" she stopped, drew a breath, "If I was like a normal girl? Like …" she hesitated, "If I was like Asami?"_

_Mako's brow furrowed, "Korra, I don't love Asami," he said quickly, before sighing and shaking his head sluggishly, "But I know what you mean. I don't love you because you're the Avatar; I love you because you're you. And you couldn't possibly be normal," he finished in a teasing tone, the corners of his mouth tilting up again. "Ever."_

_Korra scoffed a laugh. "You're still a jerk," she cuddled into him. Mako pulled the sheet up over them._

* * *

When the cool water reached her chin, Korra gave a sigh, turning to look back to where she'd left her outer layer of clothes on the grass bank. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised she was thinking about the days of old; the good times. Things had been so simple back then, even that little tiff with Bolin and Asami making things difficult for her and Mako as a couple. After her failure, things back then seemed so straightforward.

Korra raised her hand from the water and stared into her palm. She could remember herself holding the water in any shape she desired in that very palm, two years ago. She could hear Naga splashing in the distance, and she could still smell the freshly cut wheat stalk on her skin, and everything seemed so different from the city. She'd never gotten used to the urban life, but she missed it now. More than anything, she missed bending.

Korra knew if she were able to bend right now, she'd feel the water pulling on her senses, pushing and pulling her consciousness in such a magnificently natural way that she'd be unable to keep herself from bending. She knew this for certain. She'd feel the sun beating on her shoulders enriching her with energy, and she'd want to spill fire from her fingertips. She'd feel the earth humming with its own life force, just begging to be shifted by her will.

She'd never realized, until her bending had been taken away, how deeply it had connected her with everything. Korra had never considered herself to be very spiritual, but without her bending, she felt as though many of her senses had been taken away. She was numbed by its absence.

Korra dipped her hand back into the water, gently pushing it with her palm. The water shifted at her push, but nothing like it once had. She sighed and dipped her head back, until the water soaked her hair and stuck it to her neck. She missed wearing it in her old hairstyle; but she couldn't be recognized. Nobody here even knew her name; she was just 'kid' or 'kiddo' to Chung, and she didn't talk to anyone else, except to go into town to buy the odd newspaper every now and again.

'_2nd Anniversary Of Avatar Korra's Disappearance'_

'_Good Riddance, says Councilman Tarrlok'_

'_Avatar's Parents attend State Funeral'_

Korra drew a long breath and ducked under the water, hoping to disappear a little more. Sometimes she could completely forget her past, and she was just a simple farmhand helping a poor old man where she could, and others, she'd end up mulling over the festered scars of her failure, unable to let them go. It had been six months since the second anniversary of her disappearance, and people had given up on finding her. The only stories about her now were statements from diplomats and politicians, urging her to sacrifice herself for the greater good, and they just got harder and harder to ignore.

She wondered if she should just reveal herself - let the angry citizens of Republic City come for her blood. Maybe that was the best thing to do.

But right now, Korra was surviving. She could survive for now; things were simple and quiet, and she had some space to be alone with her own thoughts. This was okay for her. She couldn't screw this up.

Korra pulled herself out of the water and waded back to the bank, unable to enjoy the water as it was. She was clean, at the very least. What she'd give to feel the water - really feel it, like she once had. She half expected to be able to bend herself dry once she was out of the lake, picking up her clothes. She drew a breath and pulled her trousers on, quickly followed by the long, sleeveless green tunic she wore most days. Korra walked back along the dusty dirt road barefoot, her sandals held in her fingers.

"Naga, come on!" she called over her shoulder.

There were a few loud splashes - Naga running out of the water - and then the polar-bear dog was walking beside her, shaking off the wet right onto the ex-Avatar, who laughed despite her mood.

"Might as well go see what Sola's made for lunch, huh?" Korra reached out and caught Naga's floppy ear in one hand, gently tugging it in a teasing fashion. Sola, Chung's wife, was a plump woman, hunched as her husband was, with bags under her eyes and wiry gray hair to her waist, tied back into a bun that reminded Korra of Katara. Korra wanted to smack herself for being so nostalgic today; it never did her any good.

* * *

_There was no note. No 'I love you but I have to go' left for Mako, no 'I'm sorry I failed' for Tenzin, no 'be good for your parents' for Jinora, Ikki and Meelo. If she'd left a note, she also have had to apologize for Bolin being dead, for the destruction caused to the city in the midst of bender-antibender war, for the countless people caught in the middle of a battlefield she could do nothing to help. What kind of Avatar was she if she couldn't even bend?_

_Korra threw a rucksack of food, money and some camping supplies over her shoulder, her free hand untying Naga from the hitching post in the White Lotus' encampment a few miles outside of the war-torn city. 'Nice night for an escape,' Katara had said. Korra almost wished her Waterbending master were here now, to offer wisdom, to tell her what to do, to make things go back to the way they had been. The old woman had always been great at doing that._

_But she couldn't go home - not to Katara, not to her parents, not to the compound at the South Pole. They'd make her continue being the Avatar, a useless, pathetic excuse for a savior, having failed everyone. She'd have to live in the shame of her defeat. She couldn't. She knew it was the wrong thing to do, but she had to go somewhere else. She had to be someone else._

_Korra couldn't bring herself to stay. There were few things left here for her, anyway, in this barely secure fort. Mako hated her now, and she didn't blame him. Bolin's death was her fault - she'd been so busy fighting Amon's lieutenant to notice chi-blockers driving him further and further back until he lost his footing and went falling through the air to the blazing, rioting city. And she'd let Mako hold Amon back for her. How weak and pathetic was she, that she would let him do that?_

_She wished she had gone into the Avatar state - she'd hoped to every god there could possibly be that everything would go black and she'd wake up, the spirit of some former Avatar having saved the day for her - but she hadn't even been realized enough to be a suitable vessel for the Avatar spirit to take over. She had had one chance to save the city, and instead of being smart about it, she'd rushed in, headstrong and immature and foolish, and it had cost everything._

_Naga whined reluctantly as Korra hopped up into the saddle, grabbing up the reins. "Come on, girl," Korra gave the beast a quick spur onward. Naga stayed rooted to the spot, turning her head to gaze at Korra. Korra furrowed her brow. "Don't look at me like that," she hissed indignantly, and kicked the animal again. Naga exhaled heavily and moved into a trot into the darkness._

* * *

Korra ate very little in the way of lunch, and didn't go to the house for dinner. The day faded away into night, and the heat of the blazing summer sun melted away. She sat in the barn, tying the wheat into neat bales to be taken to market and sold tomorrow, humming under her breath. No particular tune - she didn't remember anything from her days in Republic City, and she hadn't heard much in the way of music at the compound at the South Pole - but just taking one note and moving to another every so often. Naga sat in the straw with her chin on her paws, eyes staring into the middle distance in silent boredom.

She always stayed up late, and tonight was no exception. She turned out the lone light bulb hanging from the ceiling and climbed up into the hayloft. "Night, Naga."

Naga answered with a grumble that indicated how much she hated this life. It wasn't like Korra liked it any better - she was just a lot better at fooling herself into thinking that.

Korra lay in the straw for a while, staring through the cracks in the wall, sometimes catching the light of a star, until she couldn't keep herself awake, and she welcomed the nightmares that flashed into her mind each night, when they finally came to her. Sleep. Blissful sleep. The wonderful nothingness of sleep.


	2. To Search

"You're sure you want to do this, bro?" Bolin chewed the inside of his cheek nervously, watching his brother packing some supplies. "You don't know what you're going to find," he swallowed back the unspoken thought he was trying to convey; that Mako would only find a headstone with Korra's name on it in his search for her. Bolin leant against the wall of their room in the underground bunker the White Lotus had set up underneath Republic City; a safezone for benders.

Mako gave a breath, stuffing clothes and dried food supplies into the leather pack he planned to take with him. "I'm going to find her, Bolin," he glanced to his brother, tugging the pack from the cot he had slept on for the past two years. "And I'm going to bring her back. I'm tired of living like this."

Bolin stared at his brother with indecisive green eyes. "I want to come with you," he stated simply.

Mako drew closer to Bolin and landed a hand on his shoulder, "I know you do," he replied, giving a weak smile, "But you're safest here," he pointed out simply.

Bolin suddenly swatted Mako's hand away. "I'm better now, Mako," he snapped stubbornly, "I've been better for a year now," he reminded his brother, his eyes showing cold determination in them. Mako just stared back with an equally stubborn look on his face.

Mako knew all too well how long Bolin had been better - he also knew how long it had taken for Bolin to get to that point. Bolin had spent six months in a coma, unable to feed himself, unable to breathe on his own, with countless procedures to correct damage done by his messy collision with Yue Bay from the sky above. There had been eight months after that in which Bolin had had to learn all over again how to walk. Yes, he was better now, and he could even bend now, as good as he had before the fall of Republic City, but he wasn't going to risk any danger to his little brother again.

Mako drew a long breath. "You can't come with me," he answered huskily, and then sucked Bolin into a hug that caught him off guard. Mako gripped him tightly, squeezing his eyes shut and patting his brother's back. "I'll be back," he promised solemnly.

Bolin grabbed hold of his brother, hugging back. "You'd better be," he exhaled a shaky breath.

The brothers released one another and finished their man-hug with sharp smacks on the others' shoulder - which was supposed to reassure manliness called into question by hugging, one would assume. Mako grabbed his coat and scarf from the rack by the door and shot his brother a hopeful smile.

"I'm going to find her," he repeated adamantly.

Bolin didn't have the heart to negate this. "Good luck."

And Mako disappeared.

* * *

It had been four months since the start of his search. Mako was tired already; tired of towns that hadn't seen, didn't know, weren't sure. Tired of people who said 'if you find her' instead of 'when you find her' in their messages to send to the long-missing Avatar. Most of the messages were unkind, and he didn't intend to carry them. Still, he traveled on, ignoring the cities; Korra wouldn't go to a city. Hell, she probably wouldn't go by her own name anymore. She'd be in the country - some quiet place she could get away from the past.

Selfish bitch that she was.

He trekked on foot for the most part, sometimes hopping carts where it suited him. Mako wandered over hills and through valleys, stopping in each town and asking not if they had seen the Avatar, but if they had seen a girl of about nineteen or twenty, with dark hair and bright eyes, muscular in built, about yay-high. A lot of it was guesswork; he could only assume Korra hadn't grown in height, as he probably had. He wondered what the years might have done to her; if she was still strong, still confident. Much as it hurt to do so, he doubted she was still as lively and vivacious as she had been in those nights they'd spent together, all that time ago.

All he really knew was that Naga would be with her. So his search took him to towns where farmers resided; people with plenty of land and a stable for a polar-bear dog to live in. Most of the countryfolk were cold to a city boy wandering around in search of his missing other half - he didn't see the point in elaborating when they made this assumption - but occasionally, one would show him enough kindness to put food in his belly and a pillow under his head.

He took money to carry messages and packages north - the direction in which he had decided to travel - but this tender was rarely enough to carry him through. He made money every so often at the various taverns he passed through; cheating at cards for money. Mako never stayed in one place long enough for this to get him into trouble. Initially, he had picked up little knickknacks along the way that he'd though Korra might like when he found her; this kept the idea of her alive in his mind. Eventually he discarded these items, when he was reminded of her selfish flight.

But he didn't really think he could blame her for leaving. It couldn't have been easy to become the first non-bending Avatar at seventeen, losing all her trained bending, everything she'd worked at since age six. Mako didn't think he'd have known what to do with himself either, bar for flee. But still; why hadn't she at least said goodbye?

Mako cursed himself; he knew exactly why she hadn't said goodbye.

'_This is all your fault! You did this!' _he remembered screaming in her face, the cloth of her shirt clenched in his hands. And her eyes, terrified, lost, staring at him, brimming with tears. His own face had been already streaked with tears - he had been horrified at the idea of losing Bolin - and he hadn't seen anything in her but a stupid, reckless idiot. He'd wanted to hit her, to hurt her. Mako had truly blamed her for Bolin's death.

Mako thought of all this while sat at a bar in a small, one-ostrich-horse town in the northwest corner of the United Republic, a glass of amber liquid - he didn't truly know the name of his liqueur - in one hand and the side of his face in the other, elbows on the bar before him. He swirled the drink in the glass, rolling its bottom along the wood of the bar absently.

"Top up, son?" the bartender asked, the bottle of the drink in hand.

Mako didn't look up - only having caught sight of the man in his peripheral vision - and gave a sharp nod. "Thanks," he said, extending his glass to the barman. His glass was filled and he pulled it back, taking a sip of it. The sip turned into a guzzle, and he poured it down his throat, before wincing at its bitterness and putting the glass down.

The barman smiled wanly as Mako laid down his payment.

"You haven't seen a water tribe girl around here, have you?" he asked in a plain tone - he'd asked this too many times and had too many answers to really inflect when he spoke. "She's about twenty. Thin, muscular, five seven or five eight; bright blue-green eyes?" Mako glanced up, and caught a warmth in the barkeepers face that he likened to that of Hiroshi Sato - before he turned out to be a scum-sucking equalist. Hesitantly, Mako added, "She's traveling with a polar-bear dog."

The barman shook his head briefly, taking Mako's glass and running it under water from a tap set in the bar, before setting about polishing it with a cloth. "Sorry, son. None like that around this town," he answered ruefully. "You should check the outlying farms though; a lot of travelers can find work, food and shelter while passing through," he gestured vaguely around the air.

Mako had heard this from a few people - farms were apparently a hot zone for people on the move. He had stopped into a few farms too, but there were just too many in these country parts of the world to check them all. The idea that he might have passed by Korra while traveling twisted his gut. But he was sure she was still to be found; forward, not back. He wanted to think that his chances of finding her went up with each step he took away from Republic City.

"Thanks anyway," he gave a brief wave, tucked his hands into his pockets and turned out of the bar. He moved between the tables and chattering patrons toward the door. Women hung on their men, and men nuzzled at their women, while playing cards and drinking with their friends. There was much ado and Mako missed sitting in ice cream parlors with Bolin, Asami and Korra, watching as Korra squirmed each time Asami snuggled up to him.

He stepped out into the cool night air and adjusted his pack on his shoulder, glancing north. Mako fixed his eyes on two large mountains in the distance; he had been able to see them for the past two months of his travels, and they seemed to move further away as he moved toward them. Kind of like Korra. No. He'd find her. He had to bring her back to Republic City.

* * *

"_Wake up," Mako said roughly, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes fixed on where Korra lay on a lumpy cot the White Lotus had been able to afford her._

_Korra jumped where she had been asleep, straight into a sitting position, eyes wild for a moment before they fixed on him and she calmed herself, still staring that insufferably confused stare. She blinked at him, bewildered for a second, before she drew a breath and prepared herself for the hate he usually dished out for her._

_Mako grabbed the blanket and pulled it away from her; she didn't protest, even though it was cold. She turned and dropped her feet off the bed. "Get up," he whacked her in the arm with the back of his hand, and stepped aside for her to get up. "The sentries want to talk to you."_

_Korra drew another long breath and pushed herself up to her feet, grabbing her clothes from the hook on the wall, pulling them on over her underwear. She said nothing - when and if she spoke, he'd have fuel to blast hatred at her. She resigned herself to dealing with it now. Mako tossed the blanket back over the bed and turned to watch her pulling her boots on._

"_Were you planning on sleeping through the next apocalypse?" he snorted a breath of fire, "For all the good you were in the last one," he added coldly._

_Korra hung her shoulders and walked away from him, as if she were ignoring him._

_Mako grabbed her by the arm and swung her around. She didn't meet his gaze. He hated that. He wanted to smack that stupid 'woe-is-me' act out of her. She had no idea what real pain was. What it was like to lose the most important person in the world to you, your home, and your freedom in one night. Korra just didn't get it._

* * *

Mako exhaled heavily, raising his hand to touch his fingers to his temple. He couldn't believe how cruel he'd been. Of course she'd understood. Korra had probably understood more than he had; he'd been caught up in his grief over Bolin, and he taken it out on her, like she needed anything extra to hurt over. She'd lost her bending, lost the city to Amon - by all accounts, failed as an Avatar - and all he had been able to think to do was kick her while she was down.

Mako found rest at an inn and slept. He dreamt of fires climbing Republic City's skyscrapers - licking away at the Pro-Bending arena, the only home he'd known in forever. He dreamt of Bolin falling toward the burning war zone. He dreamt of Korra disappearing into the darkness. When he woke, he paid for the room and set off toward the retreating mountains.

He wondered what Bolin would say. Bolin, who usually did the crazy things that made him have to talk sense into him. Mako was sure setting off on a journey across the United Republic to find Korra was the stupidest, craziest thing he'd ever done. And yet, he was sure he could spend the next five years looking for her and still not regret it, as tired as he was.

"Scuse me, my good man!" a call came across the morning air.

Mako turned his head toward the voice - he saw a middle-aged man standing to the side of the road with a pull-cart and ostrich-horse, grinning at him in a way that made the firebender assume he thought he could finesse him into buying something he didn't need. Mako had seen this look a hundred times on a hundred faces growing up in the city, and wasn't going to fall for whatever this guy's ploy was.

"You look like a man who could make good use of some firewood!" he gestured to his cart, where Mako's eyes picked out a layer of woodcuts in the bottom of the cart.

Mako raised a hand and waved at the air. "I'm traveling, sorry," he answered plainly.

The man threw his hands up, "Well, wood for a campfire!" he exclaimed at a chirp.

Mako rolled his eyes. "No thanks," he responded dully, continuing away from the man.

The man gave a dusty laugh. "Best wood in all United Republic, ya know - you can ask anyone down at the Outer Ring Market!" he jabbed a pointing finger in Mako's direction.

Mako glanced over his shoulder, brows furrowing, his intrigue piqued. He wasn't knowledgeable on farmer-speak, but this Outer Ring Market sounded like a place chock full of farmers he could ask about any traveling water tribe girls with polar-bear dogs. "Where's this Outer Ring Market?" he asked bluntly, stopping and turning back to face the man.

The wood salesman crossed his arms over his chest, face screwing up indignantly. "What are ya in the market for, city boy?" he returned irritably, obviously being able to tell Mako as a city person by his blunt, mannerless, no-time-to-chat attitude.

Mako drew nearer. "Information. I'm looking for someone."

The salesman scoffed. "Gettin' information from farmers is like getting water from stones," he shook his head with a short laugh. "They value their privacy; some say that's why they buy land, to keep people away from them," he whipped the air with a hand, before reaching up and rubbing his sweaty brow. "But, if you really think farmers is yer best bet for finding this someone, it's North-East of here," he pointed north-east.

Mako looked in the direction the man was pointing - he could see what looked like a town in the distance.

"There it is; you can see it from here," the man exclaimed, in a 'how about that' fashion.

The firebender drew out some money and extended it to the man, who waved his hands, denying it.

"I can't take money for nothin', son; goes against country propriety."

Mako smiled wanly. "Where I'm from, we pay for information."

The man gave a chuckle, took the money and wished him well. Mako set off toward the market.

* * *

The sun was burning bright - Mako found this was the only thing that kept him from missing city life. Out here, with hicks and idiots a dime-a-dozen, Mako had to keep his mind fixated on the good things around him; the bright sun, the fresh air (though it had taken a while to get used to air that didn't taste like satomobile exhaust fumes), the green grass, etc. Usually these were cancelled out by the irritation caused by bust after bust in his search, but today he felt pretty good; he'd make serious progress at this market.

The walk toward the market was downhill, for the most part, and he could see it up ahead, with the fields and outlying farms surrounding. There was a lake, what looked like three or four miles out from the town, gleaming under the sun. From his angle, he could see it only as a sheet of bright white, jumping out from its grassy surroundings. The town itself was mostly hand-built buildings, rather than the amazing machine-assisted architecture he was used to, and it looked like the town folk had made the effort to spiff the buildings up with colorful paints of pastel greens, blues, yellows and pinks. Place looked like a dump.

Still, there were many people around, nearing two or three hundred country-looking men, some with herding dog-lions, some with women at their sides. Mako didn't see any of them in water tribe colors - nobody that jumped out with any kind of big personality like he always expected Korra would. That didn't mean it was a bust already; she wouldn't be wearing water tribe colors, and she probably stayed pretty quiet nowadays.

What had looked like a town from afar was actually just a series of buildings where things were being sold, with living accommodations above the stores. Mako could guess that the norm was for farmers to bring their goods to the market for the hagglers to sell and take a cut of, and then for the salesmen to give the farmers their money. It seemed like a special day - not as though this place was generally so busy. He entered the town from the south gate, where he looked up a long street-like expanse with goods stores on either side. One store sold maize, and another tomatoes, and so on, and so on.

Farmers in blues, reds and greens milled around the place, buying things by the load and making arrangements to collect them in carts later on.

Mako approached the first store on the right; where a man selling potatoes in sacks was chatting to two similarly attired farmers. He waited until the man was finished talking to the farmers, and they moved off, to make his presence known by clearing his throat. The potato salesman approached, putting hands on his hips.

"Can I help ya?" he asked, smiling warily. He looked to be about forty, thin and hunched.

Mako gave a token smile - this usually made people more likely to help him - and drew a breath. "I'm looking for someone; are you familiar with most of the people here?" he glanced around, scanning the surrounding area.

The salesman arched a brow. "Most'a them, sure," he gave a quick nod, "Who ya looking for?"

Mako tucked his hands into his pockets. "A water tribe girl. She's about twenty," he said slowly, his eyes searching the crowd. None of the women here - what few there were - looked like they even remembered twenty. He felt a sharp pain in his chest at the idea of another bust.

"Ah … you might be lookin' for …" the salesman began at a drawl, "a farmers daughter, mayhap?" he leant toward Mako, his voice tilting toward some kind of innuendo.

"No," Mako answered sharply, "She's a traveler. She'd have come to the area around two years ago," he added hopefully.

The salesman breathed out thoughtfully, "Hmm," he licked his lips, reaching up and scratching his head. "Well, I know some-a the farmers around here offer work to travelin' folk, but I never known anyone to keep one about the place," he waved at the air, as if farmers could possibly just keep a traveler in some corner, as decoration of some sort.

Mako exhaled, exasperated. "Thanks anyway," he turned away from the man.

"But I know Old Chung has someone up there working for him," the man called after him.

Mako arched a brow, his expression skeptical. He looked back over his shoulder. "Excuse me?"

"Old Chung," the man raised a sage finger, "Old fella, used to be a top-notch wheat farmer around these parts, but his back gone a long time ago. Used to not come down here anymore, but for the past two years, he's had crops to bring down. And I know he ain't cuttin' it himself with that arthritis," he poked the air, looking pleased with himself. "Though I s'pose yer lookin' for a girl. Girls don't do that sort of work, do they?" he asked the air at a mumble.

Mako's brows went up. He didn't want to throw himself into this lead; he had done so before and ended up unraveling mysteries he held no care for. But it was a lead nonetheless, and he wasn't about to ignore it. "What can you tell me about this Chung?" he asked, turning back to the man and drawing close again.

The man waved the air. "No, no, where you want to be looking is widower farmers," he was saying, obviously fancying himself a detective of some sort, "they need someone to cook for 'em - that's what most traveling girls passing through do for money. Cook a meal or something, clean house and be on their way, y'know-,"

Mako laughed out - for what seemed the first time in weeks - and shook his head. "Not this one. She'd be doing manual labor. This Chung - is he here today?" Mako looked about. Water from stones, he thought to himself, amused.

The salesman eyed Mako, suspicious, then gave a nod. "Yeah. Further up the market - can't miss him. He's about sixty, and he's got a funny leg that he kind of drags about the place - old kicky injury, I imagine. He'll probably be sitting at the café - he don't get around so easy."

Mako took off without another word, at a hurried walk. He pushed his way through the crowd until he found what he imagined was the café the potato salesman had mentioned, and then eyed the patrons sitting in the chairs outside. Most were eating, bar for an old man with his feet up on another chair, hands interlaced over his belly. Mako drew a breath and approached him.

"Excuse me," Mako gave his token smile again, "Are you Chung?" he asked hopefully.

The man looked up and tilted his head, peering at Mako in the bright sun. "That'd be me," he furrowed his brow, confused.

Mako gave a breath and pulled a chair up, sitting down. "Someone said you might be able to help me," Mako began vaguely, dusting himself off and shooting the man a scrutinizing look. The man looked old, and yes, one leg looked a bit … _off, _and he did have a bit of a hunch to his back that looked like arthritis, but he looked a lot less decrepit that the potato salesman had had him imagining.

Chung gave a dusty laugh. "Oh, they did, did they? Help you with what, son?" he arched a brow in a suspicious kind of way.

Mako blinked, swallowed and inhaled to speak. "I'm looking for someone. A water tribe girl," his brows knit together and he fixed his eyes on the old man's. "She's about twenty, and she's traveling with a polar-bear dog," he searched the man's face, waiting for his reply. Bust. He knew it had to be another bust.

The man blinked at him, eyes narrowing, and then averted his brown gaze. "I ain't seen nobody like that," he answered brusquely.

Years of street life told Mako the man was lying, but common sense told him it was just another bust. Mako stared, frustrated with himself. He wondered if he'd just convinced himself this would be it, or if he was really close to her. If the old man was really lying to him, she could really be just a few short miles away from him right now. His search could really nearly be over. He could tell her that Bolin was okay, that he loved her; that she had to come back to the city.

Mako sputtered for a moment. "Are you sure? She'd be-," Mako tried to continue, but the old man waved him off.

"Sorry, but there's nobody like that 'round here," he cut Mako off, bluntly and curtly. "Let a man enjoy a nice day, now, will you?" Chung glanced back to Mako, looking extremely guilty to his trained eye, and then looked away again.

Mako took a moment to regain his composure, and slowly got up. "Right," he said hesitantly. "Sorry."

And he walked away.

* * *

Mako found a dozen ostrich-horses with carts attached, just outside the market. He found a low wall, ducked behind it, and waited. The old man had to have been lying. This was the best lead he'd had, and he had to follow it through. If it was a bust, and he found nothing, he'd come back here, then go back to his original path, and keep looking; no harm, no foul.

He had been traveling long enough to find the search draining, but not long enough to have completely lost all hope. Mako would follow a lead if he though it would lead him to Korra. He had to. Over time, farmers came and took some of their carts to collect things before leaving.

It was nearing sunset when the old man came at a limping, shuffling walk toward the carts. A few boys - farmhands, Mako imagined - of about fifteen were carrying brown paper sacks of some kind of animal feed, and they loaded them into the back of a cart that the old man climbed aboard. The old man tossed them each a couple of yuans, thanked them and snapped the reins. The ostrich horse gave a squawk and moved off, heading further north-west on a dirt road.

Mako watched this from a spot peering over the low wall, waiting. When he was sure the cart was too far away to hear his footsteps, Mako pushed himself away from his cover and darted after the cart. The cart was of shoddy craftsmanship and made a lot of noise, so once Mako caught up with it, the old man didn't hear anything amiss when he gripped the back of it, vaulted in and ducked low. A faded green tarp was balled up in the back of the cart; Mako tugged it over himself and curled up in wait.

Spirits, he was tired. But he kept himself awake; most likely just so he could be disappointed with another bust.

He didn't sleep, but he slid into an easy kind of wait, as the cart traveled. When the road changed from smooth, dry earth to rocky, poached dirt, Mako pushed the tarp off himself and found the cart was headed downhill, and also that the sky was nearly fully dark; the stars he had never seen in the city were coming to life up above him. He peered over the side of the cart and saw the light of a farmstead up ahead, with no other road leading forward. This was supposedly his destination. Mako pushed the tarp further away and hopped out of the cart. He missed his footing - having forgotten the cart was headed downhill - and tripped on his own feet, landing on his stomach in the dirt road, thankfully with little noise.

The cart trundled down the road toward the farmstead; Mako sat in the road and turned his eyes to the place.

Mako saw a house; two stories, light glowing from its windows, radio music pouring out of an open doorway, where he could imagine a kindly old woman getting dinner on the plate for her returning husband in a bustling fashion. It was everything he'd imagined an old farm might be like. The thought of Korra being here crossed his mind, and he gave a defeated breath.

'_What if she's not here?' _he wondered, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. _'What if I just got ahead of myself? What if I never find her?' _he hung his head and exhaled sharply. "Shit," he murmured.

He supposed he should sleep, and go down to have a look for Korra tomorrow. Mako guessed he might be better prepared to not find - or find, but he doubted it - Korra tomorrow, when he was rested. He got off the road and found himself in a sloping field of koala-sheep, where he laid down on his back and slipped into an abyss.

He dreamt of the last time he'd seen her face. _'This is all your fault.'_


	3. To Find

Mako slept late. He didn't usually sleep past dawn, but he was exhausted. Dreams of the war in Republic City had invaded his mind, leaving him no more energized than he'd gone to sleep, but he supposed he should be used to that by now. When he rolled over to his side, the wet dew on the grass brought him to full consciousness and he peeked open his eyes to see the sun slowly climbing the sky above him.

Korra. She could be just down the road from him.

When his mind stumbled on that note, his body quickly climbed upward to a vertical position, hands dusting at his clothes. Keeping his eyes narrowed against the harsh sunlight, burning at his sleep-dulled senses, he took a quick panoramic survey of his surroundings. Mako never stayed in one place long enough to really get a look at the things around him, but he couldn't help but note the way the sunlight filtered through the leaves on the trees; he hadn't seen that very often in the city.

Mako turned his eyes back down the dirt road - half afraid that he'd look and see more road, leading over the hill, and that the lead in his search was nothing but a dream. The farm stood there, as weather-beaten and serenely decrepit as it had the night before, sitting at the base of another rolling hill, a dirt courtyard between the house and the other buildings; the silo, the barn, the stock shed. Mako could no longer see lights shining out of the house windows, but he could hear faint music.

It was a Republic City station. Mako had thought he was far enough away from that place not to hear their stations on the air, but apparently that wasn't the case. An upbeat jazz song was playing out into the balmy morning.

Mako wondered if Bolin was listening to the same song, all the way back in the White Lotus bunker. A twinge of guilt hit him - he wondered if he really should've left Bolin alone like that. Then he shook it off - resolved that Bolin wanted him to find Korra, and he would do just that. Mako waded through the high grass and back onto the road, moving tentatively toward the farm.

The sun glared off a lake he could see about a mile's walk further west, and he had to raise a hand to protect his eyes from the reflection. It reminded him of the waters of Republic City central park, and the way the sun would burn at his skin through his clothes in the height of summer in the city. Out in the country, the weather was a lot milder. He almost missed it; several cold showers a day to keep cool in the summer, and the ten layers worn in winter to protect against the skin-biting cold. A bittersweet smile ghosted over his lips before disappearing again.

It occurred to him that he probably wouldn't be welcomed by anyone on the farm; he had, in fact, followed that old man to get here. And this Chung fellow had tried to keep him away anyway. He obviously had someone here working for him, and that meant that whether it was Korra or not, he didn't want anyone knowing about them. This wouldn't be the first time his search for Korra had brought him to a completely unrelated mystery that he didn't care to unravel.

He let himself through the wooden gate leading into the dirt courtyard and shoved himself to the wall of a red-painted, open-front storage building to get a look around without being spotted. Mako leant around it, narrowing his eyes. He had a good view of the house from here, and a better view of the barn. Inside the shed he was leant against, he could see the cart that old Chung had taken to market yesterday.

Somewhere nearby, he heard a dog-like bark, and instantly thought it was Naga. He snapped his head to it, and only saw a parrot-dog sitting on the porch of the house, its head turned toward the front door, where an elderly woman was coming out with its morning meal in hand. Mako's breath escaped in a resigned fashion. He really needed to stop getting his hopes up.

Mako tried to think on what he knew about Korra; her behavioral patterns. Where would she be on this farm? What would she do? How would she interact with the old man and his wife? Like an adoptive daughter? They didn't look like they had any children of their own - maybe they'd opened their arms to her in that sense.

No. Maybe not. Korra loved her real parents too much to ever daughterly to anyone else. He knew that much. In the water tribes, she had once said, Family was important. If she wasn't particularly close with them, only staying here to work - not for money, but more likely for food and board - she probably didn't live in the farmhouse with them. Maybe there was a guest cottage or something on the farm.

It didn't look likely; it was pretty run down.

But, he supposed he'd better take a look.

* * *

Chung got home as the sky turned dark. Bad as his back was, he jumped from the cart with the speed of a man half his age, adrenaline throwing the muscles in his legs to fill the weakness of the bones and their joints in them. He ran - he hadn't done so in years - toward the barn, his breath coming in quick bursts. The firebender boy had hopped off the cart a ways up the road, and Chung was sure it was too dark for him to be seen running to warn the Kid.

She'd told him straight out, when she'd come here, that there were people looking for her. She'd told him it wasn't quite as simple as giving her food and shelter in exchange for work. He had told her it wasn't a problem. He didn't really know why, but he had.

That boy hadn't looked like he wanted her dead - he'd looked a peculiar kind of sad at the lie Chung had told him - but the fact that he had followed Chung, hopped into the cart to find her, had shown a certain kind of desperation that the aging farmer could only put to bad intent.

Wrinkled, callused hands grabbed the dry-wood barn door and tossed it aside with relative ease. "Kid," he choked out loudly, brown eyes looking around for her.

Chung caught sight of the Kid sitting in the straw, fiddling with the bright red, wool thread she usually kept tied around her left wrist. She suddenly looked up to him, large cerulean eyes wide and worried. She suddenly stood up, brows coming down. "Chung, what's wrong?" she asked quickly, instantly forming fists - as if her first instinct in an emergency was to fight. As far he knew, she wasn't a bender, but word on the plains was that non-bending didn't hold nobody back these days.

Chung exhaled slowly, catching himself. The boy who'd followed him had stopped - to come back in the daylight, he imagined. He'd been a firebender; Chung had been able to tell that much, by the way he carried himself. Chung had been around the block a few times before settling out here - he had his demons too. Maybe the boy was waiting for the sun to come up so as to have a firebending advantage; to come down here and burn the Kid to a crisp.

Chung felt his stomach churn, for some reason. Some time in the last few years, he'd grown to like the kid; see the small girl inside the hard outer shell. He'd wanted to comfort that small girl, but the kid … Well, she was awkward about getting close to him; probably to anyone. Whatever she was running from had made her afraid to let people in.

"Someone at the market," Chung began carefully, catching his air. When he breathed in, pain split through the small of his back and he winced, straightening where he stood. The Kid moved to help him, but he held up a hand. "There was a boy at the market, asking about a girl like you, travelin' on a polar-bear dog," he forced out through his discomfort. "Followed me back here."

The kid's eyes went wider. "What?" she snapped quickly, and moved to the wall to peer through the cracks. "Where? What did he look like? What did he say? How did he-,"

Chung cut her off, "He hopped on the cart. I didn't do anything 'cause he were a bit bigger'n me," he pointed out with an arch of the brow, "And a bender, too."

The kid paused, brows furrowing and her mouth shifting to a pout that Chung couldn't quite decipher.

He continued. "Firebender; ah'm sure of it," Chung exhaled, "Taller than yourself, short black hair. Carryin' a leather pack-bag, like he been lookin' fer a while."

The kid stared at him for a moment, and then exhaled slowly. "Mako," she lifted a hand to her face, and hung her shoulders. Chung had known her for two years now, but she was unreadable. He wished he could tell what she was thinking, but she was an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in a puzzle. This 'Mako' fellow had gotten more of a reaction from her than anything else, though. That much he knew.

Chung narrowed his eyes and paused for a moment. "Kid, I know y'in a lot a mess. I wasn't born yesterday, y'know."

The kid glanced up to him through her fingers, her face expressionless.

"I'll do what'ah can to help ya get away, if that's whatch'e need to do," Chung gave a quick smile.

The kid continued to look at him through her fingers, then breathed in through her nose. "Where is he now?" she asked sharply.

"Hopped off the cart about a mile up the road. Probably gonna come down here tomorrow morn'," Chung replied.

The kid nodded. "There are still a few things here I need to do. The hole in the back fence, and the new gate in the ostrich-horse field," she thought aloud.

Chung rolled his eyes and waved a hand. "Forget about that, Kid. If you gotta go, y'better do it now - an' I'm guessing ya do."

The kid dropped her hand from her face and shook her head. "I promised to do those things. And I don't break promises," she explained slowly. "Not … not anymore," she added a little awkwardly, glancing away. She shook it off. "You can go to bed, Chung. Thanks for telling me."

Chung pressed his lips into a line. "You gonna disappear off into the night?" he asked carefully.

She smiled and nodded. "It won't be the first time," and she approached him, put a hand on his shoulder and smiled. "Thank you; for everything you've done for me."

The old man looked to his side, where he saw the polar-bear dog watching them, looking curious. He looked back to the kid and shook his head, before pulling her into an awkward kind of hug that made her go stiff. Slowly, the kid gave a small, bittersweet chuckle, and hugged him back, patting him on the back. When she pulled away, Chung was sure he saw her swipe her hand across her eyes to wipe them. "No, kid. Thank _you_."

* * *

Mako waited until the woman went back inside before even thinking about where to start looking for Korra. The parrot-dog might have been a problem, too; they were the kind of animal one only kept for security reasons; they made bad pets, with a knack for destroying furniture, making noise in the night, learning to repeat the wrong phrases at the wrong time, and suddenly deciding to maul people on a whim. But, when they saw something running, or they saw a stranger, they knew what to scream, and how to attack; the perfect security guard.

Of course, if Korra really were here, they wouldn't need a security dog, right? Then again, she'd lost her bending, and maybe she was usually busy doing other stuff in the day. At this point, he was beyond the stage of trying to convince himself that she wasn't here.

Mako slowly lowered himself to his haunches to pick up a small dirt-clod that fit nicely into his palm. He tossed it out past the shed he hid behind, into the dirt courtyard, where it broke apart into dust that floated away on the morning breeze. Mako peered around to see the parrot-dog's reaction. It was on its feet, staring into the courtyard, looking alert. Mako cringed; maybe it really was a well-trained security guard.

It snapped its head about the place, looking around cautiously, curiously. The firebender didn't know why, but he picked up another clod and tossed it.

This time, when it broke, he was holding his breath, scrunching his face to prepare for a brutal parrot-beak mauling. When the dirt clod came apart, however, he heard the animal's claws scratching at the porch's wood flooring as it scampered in fear into the house, forgetting its breakfast. Mako was glad to avoid a kink at this sensitive point in his search.

Mako darted out from behind the shed and across the courtyard, straight through the open doors of the barn and into cover. He quickly did a double-take, spinning in a circle to make a quick mental map of the inside of the barn. He was nothing if not cautious. Bending or no, Korra was a force to be reckoned with. Mako felt an ache in his chest, his brows tilting away from one another.

The dirt floor inside was littered with straw from a stack of bales of the stuff in one of the stalls, a light bulb hanging in the middle of the barn, and a large, soft pile of it in one corner - where it looked like a large person - or larger animal - had been using the pile as a bed. Mako drew nearer and leant down, wondering if he'd recognize the smell of a polar-bear dog. It was fruitless, of course; he hadn't been near that animal in over two years, and it probably didn't smell as much like Satomobile exhaust fumes anymore, what with not living in a metropolis.

He reached out and touched his fingertips to the pressed-down straw. It wasn't warm. Whatever had been sleeping in this spot was long gone. Just like Korra.

Mako exhaled irritably; why did she have to be so damned difficult? Couldn't she just make _one _thing easy for him? Leave him a hint? A clue? Something like that would really have been nice at this point. It was really starting to look like his mind had led him to another dead end.

He straightened his legs and stood at full height, turning again to survey the barn interior.

When he looked around from this new position in the barn, he could see a weathered wooden ladder leading up into a hayloft, and he walked over to grab a bar of it at his chest-height, putting one foot on to push himself up. When he reached the top of the ladder, he saw what looked like the main stacks of hay bales, and another pile of straw, pressed it as though it had been used for sleeping. Around it, there were small wooden carvings, probably made from scrap pieces of posts and rails. Some looked like animals - he couldn't tell, as they were half-assed and had been given up on before completion.

_Someone _was (or had been) sleeping up here. Whether it was Korra or not.

* * *

Korra packed up what little she had left from her days in Republic City; her old water tribe clothes, the small, red, wool thread bracelet Mako had given her from his scarf (to keep her safe, when he'd cared about her safety). She ignored the uncompleted, little-meaning wood whittlings she'd made in her spare time; they held no importance to her. She kicked them around the floor, hoping to scatter them into the straw and make him not notice them when he came up her - and undoubtedly, he would.

She kicked them because in some corner of her mind, she was afraid he'd have some patronizing, low, hurtful things to say about her 'wasting her time whittling when she had a penance to pay' or whatever his verbal explanation for being a dick to her was.

Korra threw her tattered suede rucksack over her shoulder and cursed herself. It wasn't like he didn't have reason to be hostile toward her. She'd killed his brother; the one person that meant the most to him in the world. She had let Bolin die, because she had been unable to access the Avatar state. It was her fault. All of it. Why shouldn't she take a kick in the guts every day of her life for it? She deserved it.

And she didn't deserve to find moving on a little refreshing, either, but she did. Naga did too - she could feel it. The polar-bear dog was already getting antsy at the prospect of traveling again. It was dark now, cool outside. Naga hated the hot weather, and she'd love running out in the cool night air - if she even remembered how to really **run. **After so long in one place, Korra didn't know how fast her lifelong companion could go, and how long she could keep that speed. But, Naga had never disappointed before.

Something stirred in her middle, and she felt sick. Part of her wanted to stay and confront. Her personality hated running from her problems, but there was no way she could face Republic City; Face Mako. It would hurt, because she was still madly and painfully in love with him, even after so long. Dammit, he hated her guts, and she still fought off a grin at the memory of his touch. And then she remembered how cold his eyes had been after Bolin's death, every time Mako had looked at her.

Korra's throat tightened. A lot of the time, she thought so hard about Mako's feelings that she didn't realize just how much she missed Bolin too.

_'Chi-block **that, **fools!'_

_'Wish me luck - not that I'll need it …'_

_'You're one of a kind, Korra.'_

Bolin …

Korra covered her eyes with one hand to quell the growing tears. She couldn't be a gross, sobbing mess right now. She needed to get away from here. The back fence still needed finishing before she could do that. She'd already hung the new gate in the ostrich-horse field for Chung, quietly, so as not to wake the old man, his wife, or Mako - who she was sure slept nearby.

Korra remembered the firebender being an extremely light sleeper, and reminded herself to get the last job done quietly. The failed Avatar hopped down to the bottom level of the barn and approached Naga, who was already on her paws, saddled up in the saddle from the south pole (for the first time in ages) and ready to go any minute now. Korra pulled the rucksack from her shoulder and strapped it to Naga's saddle, as the animal whined in anticipation.

"Just one more thing to do, 'kay, Naga?" Korra whispered quietly, and then threw her foot into the stirrup, hoisting herself up into the seat. Naga opened her mouth to moan out in irritation, but Korra quickly snapped, "Don't you dare, Naga," in a threatening hiss.

Naga caught herself and gave a resigned grumble, padding over to the light switch by the wall, so Korra could turn off the hanging light bulb from atop her. The girl in the saddle stooped to switch off the light, and Naga used her nose to push open the barn door. They trotted out into the night, and Korra caught the ironic familiarity of running away again.

* * *

Mako ran his hand over his mouth, his brows coming down. There were no items here other than the carvings; nothing to suggest that Korra could possibly have been here. She had a way of making everything around her reflect her attitude. She'd actually decided to rearrange all his furniture upon discovering that he and Bolin has finally gotten a real apartment (that wasn't part of a sporting arena). Mako found a bittersweet smile on his face.

What had her excuse been?

'_Oh, come on, everything was set up for **efficiency **and **convenience. **There was nothing cozy about the place.'_

And she'd somehow just known where the line across the apartment's main room had been - where his things ended and Bolin's began. Mako remembered beginning to explain to his brother why everything was moved around, and being cut off with a surprised 'wow, the place looks so much warmer!' that had left the firebender's mouth agape. Not to mention all the items Korra had always been _accidentally _leaving on his bedside table, just to make sure he never brought Asami into his bedroom.

And her tactic had worked, of course. He hadn't so much as looked at Asami like that after … after _being_ with Korra.

Mako suddenly felt the need to clear his throat, nervous, even though there was nobody around him.

There was light coming in from a closed door on the upper level - probably used to load hay from the loft onto the old man's cart when he needed to cart it. He moved over to it and pushed it open a little bit, to look out into the courtyard. He saw the dirt yard, long-sun-dried ruts from cart wheels backing up to the barn. Mako turned to look away, when he caught it out of the corner of his eye.

Palest brown eyes zeroed in on the dirt right outside the barn. And they saw the paw imprints of a polar-bear dog's trotting gait.

A series of emotions flashed across his features, the first and foremost a look of pure, unadulterated shock. He had found her. It wasn't a huge reveal - no dramatic discovery, or ironic fateful crossing of paths - but he had found solid, irrevocable evidence that she had been here. Mayhap even was _still _here. After dozens of dead ends, busts and fruitless searching, it was rather strange to have actually made a dent in his mission. Part of him, he supposed had feared she really had been killed, or carried through with the pleas of those nut-job politicians who wanted her to kill herself.

Mako felt a lot of mixed emotions about Korra in general, but he couldn't help but feel his blood boil at the cruel things the newspapers had to say about her. Yes, she had messed up, but that didn't mean she couldn't fix things. That was what all of this was about, after all, wasn't it? Finding her; getting her to set things straight - to save Republic City.

The second thing to cross his face was panic. With bone-chilling horror, he realized that he had _actually found Korra._

* * *

Korra admired her work with an exerted breath and a satisfied smile on her face, hands going to the hips of her loose, calf-length, black canvas trousers. She tossed the hammer back into the fencing bucket on the inside of the fence, and the smile faded away at the thought of poor old Chung having to come out here with his bad back to get the bucket. She pressed her lips to a thin line of indecision.

She couldn't go back - it was nearly sunrise. The fencing job had taken longer than expected, and she didn't know how late Mako slept these days. He might not have been sleeping at all; he could just be waiting for some daylight. Korra grimaced - she didn't even know what he wanted from her at this point, but she wasn't sticking around to find out. That part of her life was over, and she wanted to keep it that way. Korra breathed in the cool night air and threw herself up into Naga's saddle.

Naga turned her head to sniff Korra's foot, and gave the ex-Avatar a look that asked whether they were going yet.

Korra exhaled heavily. "Alright, Naga," she gave a light nudge with one heel and pointed Naga toward the road leading further north-west. It would lead them right past the lake they'd bathed in for these past two years, and from there they'd be able to see a town in the distance. Korra had seen that town before, and she wondered briefly what it was like. There, they'd stop for supplies, hoping nobody recognized the runaway, unbending Avatar, and then they could make tracks. "Go," she leant forward and pushed the reins forward to give Naga room to get going. Naga burst into a gallop.

They'd make a lot better time than Mako, and they'd find a new place to disappear.

* * *

The firebender took a moment to collect himself before he pulled open the hayloft doors and jumped down to ground-level. His feet hit the dirt with minimal noise, sending up a puff of dust under them, the travel pack slung across his torso tugging downwards at his shoulder, and he bent his knees to take the shock of the impact, before he straightened and dusted himself off. The parrot-dog was still nowhere in sight, and Mako didn't even bother to look around for the old man - if Korra wasn't here on the yard, he really didn't need to watch his back.

Mako's eyes fell downward, picked out Naga's paw prints and followed them along the dirt. He pushed himself after them, walking at first. He found himself jogging along them after that, one hand at the strap of his bag as it bounced with him. The prints moved further and further away from the homestead. Mako looked up from the ground and found that he was on the road again. He looked back to the farm, and along the road, looking for more prints, heading back again, perhaps. He saw none.

Korra had gone this way, and she hadn't come back yet.

The prints faded into some thin, dry grass, toward what looked like a new fence, where a metal bucket with some fencing tools was sat, just inside the post-and-rail. Mako furrowed his brow, and stepped into the grass, toward the fence, looking for more prints. His eyes picked some out, but they didn't turn and head back toward the farm. They moved back onto the road, away. The firebender approached these tracks with curiosity and confusion written on his features. He didn't think Korra would go out shopping - she was in hiding. And if she did, why would she take a six-hundred pound, one-of-a-kind polar-bear dog with her?

And then it dawned on him.

She wasn't coming back this way.

Before he even fully thought through the implications of that fact, he was following the tracks again, this time at a full-out sprint, his lungs heaving. The paw prints broke out into a gallop - he could tell by the long swipes between paw landings - and Mako suddenly felt like he was chasing after them. And in a way, he was. He followed them until he couldn't breathe, running as fast as he could, eyes fixed on the prints, nearly tripping several times. When he couldn't breathe anymore, he looked up and found himself standing at the top of a small hill, looking out over more road, a lake off to his right, and the long continuation of Naga's path, imprinted in the dirt.

Mako's chest tightened as he heaved for his breath, wide, disbelieving eyes staring at the tracks of the polar-bear dog. How long ago had she made these tracks? How much had he missed her by? Would he have caught her if he'd woken up earlier? If he'd not gone to sleep at all? What if she'd been long gone before he'd even set foot in the Outer Ring Market? It wasn't just the running keeping him from breathing now - that much he was sure of.

She was gone.

He had finally found her, only to lose her again.


	4. To Ache

The first town Mako came to, after Chung's farm, was filled with people who said they had seen the girl he described to them - polar bear dog and all. He had reached the main street of the rural, shantytown late in the after noon, as the sun had started to drift toward the horizon, and the people said they had seen her that morning. Mako was half a day behind her.

The second town, he reached two days later, this time at high noon. On the aged, wooden signs at either end of the main street, the town had been named as Shi-something. The people of Shi-something said they had seen her two evenings ago, and that she had stopped for supplies. Mako was a day and a half behind her.

By the time he reached the fifth town, past sundown, having walked three weeks west from old Chung's, he was a week and a half behind Korra, and falling further and further back.

In this fifth town, Mako ambled into a bar and sat himself down at the counter. He ordered a bottle of the strongest stuff the bartender had in stock, and put down a ten-Yuan note. The bartender took the ten and handed the firebender two Yuans' change, a large bottle of a dark amber liquor, and a shot glass with ice in it. Mako found himself staring at the ice in the glass for a moment, thinking about it, before he finally poured in the whiskey and knocked back his first shot of the night. He had been searching for nearly five months now, and had almost found her. Rain had come, a week ago, and washed away all the tracks left in the dirt, but Mako knew Korra was heading west, and sticking to that usually kept him on her tail. If it didn't rain again, he supposed he might start seeing the tracks again.

Mako knocked back another shot and looked up to the bartender, who was leaning against the counter, a little further up the bar, polishing a glass and talking to an older gentleman, also sat at the bar. He sharply rapped a knuckle on the countertop to catch the man's attention. The bartender turned around and arched a brow at him.

"Something else, son?" he asked dryly, narrowing his eyes and putting the polished glass down on another counter behind him.

Mako nodded tiredly. "Do you have a telephone I can use?" he asked slowly, the day's walking having taken a lot out of him.

The barkeep exhaled as if irritated and turned to take a rotary phone from the counter behind him. He set the phone down on the bar, before the firebender. "Ain't free, you know," he snapped sharply, pushing his lips together beneath a bushy moustache.

Mako pushed his two Yuans' change at the bartender, and muttered out an equally put-upon "There," before he slid the phone closer to himself and punched in a number, lifting the receiver from its cradle. He heard nothing for a while, holding it to his ear, and took a few more swigs of his drink.

When a voice finally came on, it sounded like someone was gargling marbles. Mako actually recognized the voice as one of the White Lotus sentries. _"Pass phrase?" _the sentry asked briskly, the paranoia of responsibility thick in his tone.

Mako drew a breath and pushed his brows up tiredly. "Is _Aunt Kann _there?" he grit out the rehearsed reply, equally curt, "It's Bolin," he added breathily, the hint of an irritated grunt in his own tone. He lifted the shot glass, once again filled, to his lips. To anyone around, he sounded like a perfectly normal an unsuspicious person. After all, he looked like a traveler, and travelers called home to talk to relatives. In reality, it was a clever way of casually stating whom you needed to talk to, remaining anonymous to those around you, and assuring the sentries on the other end that you were cleared to speak to that person.

There was a slight pause. _"Mako?" _the voice assumed, the original paranoia fading away.

"Yeah," Mako responded quickly.

A longer silence ensued, and Mako waited while the sentries went to fetch Bolin to the phone. This took about four minutes (the bunker was quite large, Mako remembered) and several shots of his drink. When his brother finally came to the phone, Mako was in a slightly altered mood, better or worse, he wasn't yet sure of. The wonderful thing about a drink every now and then was that it took the edge off whatever it was you were feeling. The crappy thing about that was that Mako rarely knew exactly how he was feeling these days.

Mako first heard some quiet talking, before his brother actually spoke to him. _"Mako? You there?" _Bolin asked, his voice sounding hopeful.

The firebender had called his brother twice since leaving the bunker, along his travels, this being the third time. Mako left long spells between calls because he hated calling to say he hadn't yet found Korra, but this time was different. Slightly. "I'm here," Mako began with a breath, and swirled his drink in the glass, "How are things?" he began slowly.

"_Things are … good," _Bolin started awkwardly, and Mako immediately got the feeling that something wasn't right. _"Any leads on finding her?" _Bolin suddenly blurted, and Mako's worry was instantly overtaken by the question. Yes, there was a lead, but it didn't look like he would find her anytime soon. In fact, things were going to be a lot harder, now that Korra was actively running _away _from him. Mako didn't miss the way Bolin refrained from saying _her _name.

The older brother sighed heavily, eyes falling on the swirling drink in his hand. "Not really," Mako answered glumly, before tilting his head back and swallowing the contents of his glass in one big gulp.

He heard his brother's innocent gasp at the realization that Mako was at a bar. _"Are you drinking?" _the earthbender hissed, and Mako was sure Bolin's eyes were wide and shocked, wherever the phone in the bunker was.

Mako uttered out a tight-lipped, post-gulp, "Yep," with minimal contrition in his voice.

Bolin seemed to give a resigned breath, as if realizing just how badly the search for Korra was going. _"You alright?" _Bolin asked, sounding worried.

"Not really," Mako admitted, with a sad smile growing on his face. He didn't know when the thought had entered his mind, but it spilled from his mouth all of a sudden, in a quick block of words that caught him off-guard, "I miss her."

Bolin was silent for a short spell, and Mako was grateful for this; it gave him a moment to come to terms with what he'd just said. Those three words didn't even come close to conveying just how he felt about this whole thing, but it was a start. He missed her, and he blamed himself for her being gone, and at the same time, he was angry that she had left, and disappointed that she had failed, and on top of that, he was painfully in love with her - which really didn't help matters.

He was drunk, he concluded, and all these feelings would go away if he sobered up.

Still, he poured another glass, and another.

"_Don't do anything stupid, okay, bro?" _Bolin tried tentatively, unused to telling Mako what to do, _"And don't drink too much, or you'll never get up early enough to make good time tomorrow," _he held a concern in his voice that made Mako feel guilty for even getting the bottle in the first place.

Mako breathed out through his nose. "I won't. And don't _you_ do anything stupid either, alright?" he couldn't help but add, his brows coming together.

Bolin laughed nervously. Mako worried a little more. _"Right. Got it. 'Kay, night, Mako!" _Bolin chirped out, and then Mako heard a click.

"Hey, don't-," Mako tried to stop his brother from hanging up, but now all he heard was a repeating beep. He gave a long blink, pulled the receiver from his ear and set it in its cradle. The bartender snatched the phone away and put it up on the shelf behind him. If he'd been looking, he might have caught the glare the barman gave him. He shook his head and drained the bottle in his hand, before moving to get up from the bar.

Mako's legs were weak on the floor, and he wondered how long he had sat there for. He walked - or at least, assumed he had walked, and not stumbled drunkenly - out of the bar and across the street, to the hotel that sat there, warm light spilling from its windows and laughter carrying from its walls. He paid for a room, climbed the stairs to it, and collapsed on the amazing softness of the bed inside, before falling into blissful darkness, and dreamless abandon.

The sky was a creamy kind of morning color when Mako realized he was both awake and hung-over. Once he noted the color of the sky through the window, he was suddenly aware of just how _bright _it was, and quickly shut his eyes again. He cursed himself, forcing himself up into a sitting position from the face-in-the-pillow position he had originally been sprawled in. With the difference in altitude, he felt his skull trying to compact inside his head, and suddenly wanted to throw up. Not physically, but figuratively. He never drank enough to empty the contents of his stomach, but he had come pretty close to that line last night.

He sat for a moment regaining his wits, before he felt around and found his pack on the floor at his feet with his eyes squeezed shut. He finally forced open the pale gold orbs in his head, toughed out the blaring brightness and resisted the urge to fall back to the bed, until he finally felt able to attempt a more vertical position. One arm slung his pack over his shoulder, while the other found something to hold onto while getting up. He found a bedside table nearby and pulled himself to his feet.

Now on his feet, the sun was no longer staring him in the face, and he could take a quick look around without wanting to die. The room looked cheap - understandably, as he never spent too much money on room and board - but not intentionally so. Whoever had set the room up had at least tried to make it nice.

Mako took the first step away from the bedside table, now weighed down by his pack, and was pleasantly surprised by how functional his legs were. He carefully made his way into the bathroom adjoining the hotel room, drew out some items from his pack and had a brief bird-bath, brushed his teeth, etcetera. After a few large gulps of water, his hangover began to reluctantly fade away. He left the room, and left the key in the door, before leaving the hotel and taking to the road again.

It took a few hours for his brain to wake up, but that was to be expected.

The slow return of normal mind function was significantly increased when Mako found more polar-bear-dog prints at his feet. At least he knew he hadn't lost the trail. He was falling further and further back, yes, but if Korra ever came to a lasting stop, he would be on her like buzzard-flies on a dumpling. That's all there was to it. He'd find her, or die searching.

See? He had told himself things would be better if he sobered up.

Mako was now one week and five days behind Korra, and that was okay. Eventually, she'd slow up, and he'd catch her.

Luck seemed to be on his side today, too, because after only four hours of walking, a cart pulled by elephant-horses came by, pulling what the driver was calling 'railway bits', whatever those were. The driver, a half-northern-water-tribesman who didn't quite know what percentage of what he was on the other side, going by the name of Tooki (Mako wondered what kind of parent(s) would name their child such a thing) was quite interested in telling Mako all about this 'railway' thing that was the big craze in the Fire Nation now, and so he invited the firebender to join him on the cart.

Apparently, these 'parts' were made in a metalbender factory in the southeast United Republic, carted across the republic to the northwest coast, and then shipped to the Fire Nation to help complete the railway system they had there. Mako knew very little about technology in the Fire Nation - despite being a firebender - and listened intently. According to Tooki, it was cheaper to have metalbenders make the parts for the railway than it was to use Fire Nation factories, and this was causing a huge decline in the job market for factory workers over there. Protests and the like.

"Why not buy parts from the Earth Kingdom directly?" Mako asked after a while, "There have to be more metalbender factories there, right?"

Tooki considered himself an amateur political commentator, and answered, "Well, United Republic's closer to the Caldera, for one thing - less time to ship the finished product if they order it from here," he thought aloud. "And them in the Fire Nation ain't exactly known for patience."

Mako gave a half-hearted, semi-interested reply that he forgot about within moments of saying.

"So, where you headed?" Tooki suddenly chirped, turning a curious smile at Mako.

"Everywhere - Nowhere," Mako responded dully.

Tooki gave a snorting kind of laugh and proceeded to allow the young man some silence. Mako didn't see fit to ask this man if he'd seen Korra; he was just another traveler, like himself. There was a camping pack and several sacks of ostrich-horse feed in the cart, along with the railway parts. The elephant-horses didn't move that much faster than he had on foot, but they were faster; that was undeniable. He was making good time.

* * *

Korra slid the tip of her index finger between her wrist and the red thread tied around it. In the back of her mind, she marveled at how long the threat had lasted; it had been around her wrist for two years, and was in the same condition as it had been on the day Mako had first tied it there. Korra looked at the knot itself, still the very same knot he had tied. She grunted in her throat, let go of the thread and focused on the reins in her hands.

She had passed through another town about four hours ago - the seventh since Chung's farm. Mako had to be at least three days behind her by now.

Regrettably, her backside was sore from hard riding all day, and she never stopped long enough for the soreness to go away, but the scenery kind of made up for it, at the least. Naga didn't seem to even break a sweat cantering all day, every day, with only five-minute stops every three hours, but Korra was under the impression that the polar-bear-dog didn't want to stop for too long for fear that she'd have to sit around with nothing to do like she had at Chung's.

Korra's favorite part of the whole being-back-on-the-road thing was the brief two days where the sky had opened up and poured rain down on them. It had reassured her that Mako would have trouble following her tracks in the dirt, and also been a nice change from the usual hot sun out here. She'd found the rain comforting; not enough to wonder if her Waterbending senses were coming back, but enough to remind her that she was from the Water Tribe, and that a certain affinity for the water would always be with her. And that had made her feel pretty good.

It was dark now. Korra didn't even know how the day had gone so quickly, having been lost inside her own mind. The trees she could see on the high mountain-esque hills up ahead were only black silhouettes against a deep, dark, blue-purple sky, littered with stars and small, lavender-colored clouds. The moon existed only as a sliver of white, crisp and clean, its light bouncing off the highest edges of the few clouds in the air.

Briefly, Korra wondered what it would be like to soar like a cloud. She remembered Tenzin, and the airbender kids, and trying with all her might to airbend. Korra had never airbent in her life, and never would. For a long time, she had wanted nothing more than to be able to airbend - after all, since age six, it had been the only thing she was unable to do. Korra tried her best to push this thought away, but it still niggled at her consciousness. It was late, and she was tired. Things would be better in the morning.

Korra slowly pulled back on the reins. "Whoa-up, Naga," she patted Naga's shoulder, as the polar-bear-dog came to a steady walk beneath her. When Naga finally came to a full stop, the ex-Avatar freed her feet from the stirrups and kicked her left leg over the saddle behind her, dismounting with expert ease. Upon feeling her feet hit the ground, Korra began to pat her backside, hoping to return some feeling to it.

They didn't have any camping supplies, and without firebending or spark-rocks, she couldn't build a fire, either, but she knew how to find a soft spot in the grass to sleep. She could see an old, thick oak tree just a ways off the road, and it looked like the perfect spot to sleep; secluded and private, and only in peripheral view from the road. Anyone riding by would have a hard time seeing them. Naga seemed to catch on to Korra's train of thought and started toward the tree.

It wasn't the first night she'd spent out under the stars - not even the first since Chung's. But it still took her a while to get comfortable, lying back against her animal companion. Naga was out like a light the moment she curled up on the ground, but it took a while for Korra's mind to shut down.

A small part of Korra wanted to stay put and wait for Mako to find her; partly to confront her problems head on, and partly just to see him again. The rest of her wanted to run until she couldn't run anymore. She couldn't go back to Republic City. She couldn't. What could the remaining benders there possibly want with a non-bending, useless, failure of an Avatar? And didn't she _deserve _to spend the rest of her days running? Countless people had lost their bending to Amon. Korra knew exactly how large a part of her bending had been, and because of her, thousands of people had been subjected to losing theirs.

"Dammit," Korra muttered into the cool air, screwing up her face and lifting a hand to rub at her tired eyes. Things had been so much simpler at Chung's.

Hopefully things would be better in the morning - and if they weren't, then that was just her penance to deal with.

Korra waited for sleep to come. It didn't. She flopped down to a more horizontal position beside Naga, hoping that would help, and then turned on her left side, then rolled onto her stomach, and then back onto her back, staring up into the tree over her. A pout formed on her face. She needed to sleep; didn't her body get that? Insomnia wasn't a luxury she could afford right now.

It wasn't as if she wasn't tired; she was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. She'd have liked to count the minutes that passed as she waited for sleep, but she didn't have any kind of time-telling device - probably couldn't read one if she did, knowing her uselessness. Korra tossed around a few more times before hitting the ground in annoyance. She couldn't help but be surprised when there was no dent in the earth after it. Two years of non-bending hadn't undone seventeen years of the opposite.

Ultimately, she gave up on sleep and decided to wait until Naga woke up to move on. She'd get a nice, large cup of bracing tea in the next town they stopped in, or something. Patience wasn't exactly Korra's strong suit. She could sit tight for maybe five minutes without fidgeting, but this time she waited for a good half-hour before she was frustrated with it, and then she had to get up and stretch.

Once she decided she wasn't sleeping, the fatigue faded away and her body became restless.

* * *

_Mako grumbled under his breath. "Stay still," he furrowed his brow, eyes closed, where he lay with his back to the tossing Avatar._

_Korra turned onto her back again. "Sorry," she apologized, clenching her jaw and squashing her eyes shut. Korra even tried counting koala-sheep, but it felt weird to keep her eyes shut; her body didn't want to go to sleep. Forgetting about Mako, she threw herself back onto her side, her back to him, huffing in annoyance. Her brows came down and together, her mouth slipping into a pout._

_Korra heard Mako growling under his breath, and she wanted to be still, if for no other reason than to let him sleep, but she couldn't hold still for any length of time. She couldn't find a comfortable position to sleep in, and probably wouldn't be able to sleep even if she did. She wasn't troubled or anything; she just couldn't sleep. She frowned harder and rolled from one side to the other, until she was facing Mako's back. She moved to roll onto her stomach, but stopped when Mako suddenly jerked himself into a sitting position._

_When her eyes focused in the dark on him, she saw him staring at her, irritated. "What's wrong?" he asked sharply. Honestly, it was bad enough that she shot the temperature under the sheets up into the hundreds, but she was keeping him awake. He loved her, but she was really, really bothering him right now._

_Korra groaned and rolled onto her back. "I don't know," she grumbled. "I can't get comfy."_

_Mako turned himself toward her and reached out for her pillow, pressing on it. "Is your pillow too lumpy?"_

"_Nope."_

"_Too hot?"_

"_Nuh-uh."_

"_Too cold?"_

"_Temperature's fine, Mako," Korra exhaled, sitting up. "Maybe I'm hungry," she thought aloud, a hand coming up to push her messy hair off her shoulders._

_Mako arched a brow. "We just ate. A huge meal," he pointed out, and then sighed heavily, brows pushing up toward his hairline. She was usually asleep before he even had a chance to say 'good night' - and a heavy sleeper too. Most of the time, he had to physically peel her out of bed in the morning. "Have you tried counting-,"_

"_Four hundred and thirty-two," Korra cut him off, a weak smile playing on her face._

_Mako exhaled, as if annoyed, and then allowed the corners of his mouth to tilt upward. He moved his hand from her pillow to her shoulder, and guided her back down to the bed, closer to him. He pulled her into his arms, so her back was pressed to his chest, and kept his hands loose around her forearms. She slowly settled into his embrace, a sleepy look taking over her face. She fidgeted, but only once; when she did, Mako tightened his hold on her arms. "Stay still," he repeated, but only as a reminder. "Relax, meditate, whatever …" he trailed off tiredly, and dropped his jaw to allow a yawn to escape._

_Korra was surprised to find that he was able to hold her still even when asleep. Ultimately, she had no choice but to go to sleep as well, and remarkably, it came a lot easier when his arms were wrapped around her, and his mouth was snuggled into the nape of her neck. Korra didn't know what it was that had kept her from sleeping, but she knew that Mako was the cure for it._

* * *

The initial ghost of a smile that came to Korra's face at the thought of Mako's touch faded before it had fully formed. She suddenly felt cold. It was unexplainable; a foreign kind of feeling that she hadn't truly experienced before. Thoughts and feelings were flooding her mind, and tight, choking sensations were taking over her body. She wondered if she was having some kind of fit or seizure, but then a horrid sound ripped itself from her lungs.

And she realized she was crying.

Korra didn't remember this - hadn't done it in so long. Hot, wet, stinging tears were leaking from her eyes, down her cheeks, and it felt _wrong. _It was like her very soul was spilling out and she could do nothing to reel it back in. She sobbed out a ragged, wretched choke, and inhaled a disgustingly desperate breath, only to sob it back out as well. She found herself pushing away from Naga, onto her hands and knees, trying to stop it.

It felt bad - it hurt. Everything hurt. Her chest, her lungs, her stomach, her throat, her eyes, her head; they all simultaneously burned and stung and clenched inside her. She wanted to throw up, to die. Why? Why was this happening now? She had held herself for two years, strong and resigned and at peace with her failure as the Avatar. Why, after two years, was it all tearing its way out of her now?

Korra screamed between sobs. She was in agony, and she was helpless to save herself from it. Her head hung from her neck so that the tears rolled toward her hairline instead of her chin, and her fingers dug into the dirt. She was alone, and there was nobody around for miles. Maybe it was best that this had happened out here, where she was alone. Oh, but she was _so _alone. She deserved to be alone, but it hurt right now. Everything hurt, and she wanted desperately to cling to someone who was telling her that she would be okay.

Korra found herself staring at the mud between her hands, tears pouring from her eyes and misting her vision, as she caught the flash of blurry red around her wrist. She missed him. She missed him so badly. Korra hated it with every fiber of her being, but right now she wanted nothing more in the world than for Mako to be here, sucking her into his grip and holding her until the pain went away. But Mako hated her, and that hurt too.

And Bolin … she felt her stomach twisting, and she was sure she really was going to be sick. She opened her mouth and sobbed again, hands pushing her back to sit on her own calves. Naga was awake now, and Korra could feel the animal's comforting breath on her back. Korra tilted her head back and wailed at the sky through the leaves above her. It was a horrible, gritty, agonizing shriek of a sob that broke out of her with each breath, and an equally painful inhale that followed, until she was sure she couldn't breathe anymore. She couldn't breathe, couldn't sleep, couldn't make the torture stop.

Bolin. Mako. She missed them so much.

Korra's fingers gripped the grass and her legs suddenly threw her upward, away from Naga. She felt her stomach stirring again, and a hand went up to her head, to push her already wet hair back from her face. She deserved this, she told herself. She deserved every agony that the world could throw her way. Korra stopped when she could no longer walk, and held her hair back with one hand, breathing hard. She was going to throw up; she knew it. She was sick. She was dying. And she deserved it.

Korra gripped her head with both hands. She wanted it to stop; she wanted the pain to stop. Korra's throat was hoarse, and she was babbling unintelligible nonsense, but she couldn't stop it. It was her own fault, she told herself; she had killed Bolin, and she had made Mako hate her, and she had burnt down Republic City. Naga approached Korra from behind, and the ex-Avatar couldn't stop herself from turning, grabbing onto soft white fur, and burying her face in it, still spouting tears and sobs and nonsensical words between the names of people she had failed.

Her legs failed her and she fell down again, ignoring the inconsequential thump of the ground against her knees.

She didn't know when the agony of tears stopped and the torment of the nightmares began.


	5. To Stumble

Trees whizzed past Korra as she ran, and the world tilted so that she was sprinting downhill. She felt her feet landing wrong, her body moving without the command of her legs, and she tried to slow down, but the world seemed to tilt a little more, and she couldn't stop herself. She could only keep moving her legs under her, keeping herself vertical, breathing hard. Her footwork had to be careful - roots were grown over the woodland path, and if she wasn't careful, she'd trip on them - and she needed to see the ground at her feet, but she glanced up to see what she was careening toward; only to see the end of the path coming up quickly. A deep, dark hole had been gashed into the earth ahead of her. Her ankle caught on a well-placed root, and her shoulders were thrown forward.

Korra pushed her hands out to catch herself, but before she could, her back was in the dirt and her legs were rolling over her head. Roots jabbed her in the ribs and back as she protected her head with her arms, tumbling down toward the ditch. The mossy earth disappeared from under her, and she felt herself falling. A hand grabbed out for something - anything. Korra caught a thick root with one hand, and righted herself to hold on with both hands.

Greeny-blue eyes fell down through the darkness to assess the depth of the hole, and when she looked up, a silhouette was blocking the sunlight above her. Korra squinted through the light to see better, and the leaves of the trees grew into the space behind the silhouette, letting the sun fade away. The person standing over her was Bolin. She stared, lost, at him.

He leant down and offered his hands, silently, but smiling. Korra immediately smiled in relief and grabbed onto his hand with one of hers, and then a second. Then Bolin's smile split a little wider and his eyes narrowed, and the relief on the ex-Avatar's face faltered. "Bo-," she stopped, because his fingers were unfolding from hers, and she was slipping. "Bolin!" she shouted out, afraid. "Please!" she croaked out.

* * *

"_Mako!" Bolin screamed out, the wind taking his clothes across the air in front of him as he fell backwards through the sky._

"_Bolin!" Mako shrieked, fire bursting from his fists, tears streaking from his wide, terrified eyes. He kept his eyes fixed on Amon as they dueled, but wanted desperately to turn and look, to jump to save his brother; Korra could tell that, where she stood over an incapacitated Lieutenant, struggling to climb back to his feet. "Korra!" Mako screamed hoarsely across the air. "Do something! Save him!" he choked out, his throat clogged with tears._

* * *

Bolin's hands released Korra's, and she began to fall, eyes fixed on where he stood above her. The darkness was crawling in, in thick tendrils of a silky, slimy black, and she could feel the air thicken to a heavy and muggy heat, almost as though the darkness was physical - a being that could suck her in and devour her. She fell through it, fast, and the light above her faded away into a small patch, and then a spot, and then nothing.

She was awake. There was no hazy in-between dividing sleep and wakefulness; Korra suddenly realized that she was awake, and that her night's adventure had been but a dream. That never made it any less real - her dreams were always painfully realistic, agonizingly vivid. Sometimes she couldn't help but think her daily life was the dream, and the images she saw in her sleep were the realest things in her world. In a lot of ways, this was true. Out here, she was nobody. Lifeless. In her dreams, she was still lost in Republic City. Her hands came up from their place draped over her waist and rubbed at her face.

Finally, she opened her eyes to look through her fingers and the leaves on the tree above her, to the sunlight shining down on the United Republic. Another day. A day of running, and hiding, and fleeing was ahead of her. It wasn't rare that she thought about that _other way out, _but she always came to the same conclusion. She didn't deserve it. This was her penance. And she didn't have the guts to do it, anyway. Weakling. Coward.

Korra's fingers pushed back her sweaty hair - she always sweated in her sleep - and she pulled herself to a sitting position. She felt drained after that messy, choking, painful cry last night, and her throat was gritty and sore from it, but to some degree, she thought she felt a little better for it. Korra looked around and saw Naga lay flat out on her back, feet in the air and tail wagging. She felt the corners of her mouth tilt up groggily.

"Come on, Naga," Korra yawned, the words catching on the soreness of her throat, pulling her limbs together and climbing to her feet. "Time to move out. I need a bath or something," she thought aloud, her palm rubbing at the back of her neck and feeling the salty, gritty feeling of dirty skin. She hated to stop in a town for too long, but she hated being dirty. Plus, she could do with a hot meal for a change; she was sick of living on Traveler's Mix, a two-pound bag of dried rations you could buy for about three Yuans at any good retailer.

Naga yawned too, and jumped to her feet, before shaking off the dirt still clinging to her. Naga could do with a bath too, Korra noted, but one didn't exactly just stroll into a town and ask around for places you could get a polar-bear dog wash. That would be asking for trouble. Only one thing to do - look for a lake, or a river, or something. Later, though. They needed to cover some ground first. As far ahead of Mako as she knew they were, Korra didn't like to stop for too long and they had already been in one place for nearly seven hours now, sleeping. If Mako had hopped a cart in that time, he could have made a full two days up in one night.

It was only luck that Satomobiles didn't make it too far away from the capitol of the United Republic. A car could cover the same amount of ground in a week as Naga could in two; and they didn't have to stop for breaks, either. Korra decided it was also a good thing Mako didn't know how to drive.

She kicked herself up into the saddle and picked up the reins. "Yip-," she began, before catching herself and furrowing her brow. What a thing to jump to her lips - she'd never once steered a sky bison, and yet for a moment, she'd thought … ugh. "Let's go," she corrected herself and spurred one heel into Naga's side. She was just groggy from sleep. Once she fully woke up, she'd have her wits about her.

They cantered further west for four hours, and stopped with a sharp tug on both reins. Naga glanced back to Korra, who was sitting in the saddle with her brows furrowed and her lips parted, eyes fixed on the distance. The ex-Avatar closed her mouth and set her jaw, shutting her eyes and listening carefully. She was sure she heard something up ahead; and if it were a mobile task force dedicated to capturing her, she'd like to be prepared.

Wow, she really _was_ paranoid.

There was a steady, fast-paced beat to the noise, and Korra guessed it for machinery until she picked out a higher-pitched sound that meshed over the beat. What the heck was that? She spurred Naga onward, up the hill they had stopped on. There was a thick layer of chatter between the beat and the high-pitched sound, like a gathered crowd, but when Korra figured it out, she couldn't un-hear it. It was music. Upbeat and joyous music.

Naga reached the top of the hill, and Korra could see a town in the valley just down below. No lakes or rivers, but she wasn't paying attention to that. The town just up ahead was alight with people in rainbow pastels, and unlit lanterns, and music, and … _life._

Something childish and foolish and equally _alive _fizzled in Korra's middle. A wide grin spread on her face before she could stop it. "Naga, go! Look!" she spurred Naga onward, and took up the reins again. It was naïve and self-indulgent, but Korra couldn't help but laugh out as she cantered toward the town. She didn't deserve happiness, but she felt it all the same. It shot through her.

Naga gave a bark of similarly robust delight, bursting through the canter into a gallop, in a beeline toward the activity.

Up close, the music was louder, and people were dancing in the streets, throwing flowers around and wearing bright colors; Korra saw this all coming to life before her as she and Naga trotted through the archway into the large town. Some of the people in the streets threw daisies at them, laughing and smiling, before returning to their rapturous dancing. Korra almost leant forward and swung herself down to the ground, but she stopped. Slowly, the smile on her face melted away, and her jaw set. She couldn't stop here. She didn't need to; she had enough food for the day, and they were bound to come to a lake or pond eventually.

Naga craned her neck to sniff Korra's toes, expecting the failed Avatar to jump down. Korra made an indecisive noise under her breath and spurred Naga onward. Naga stayed still for a moment, confused, but reluctantly moved on. The smell of cooked meat wafted across the street from a vendor under a covered marketplace, but the polar-bear dog only sniffed it and savored the aroma, before padding away, as tempting as it was. Korra smelled it too, and her stomach growled, but she sat still in the saddle, lowering her eyes.

They rode on through the town, and along the road, listening as the music faded away to silence, and the closest thing to a melody became the chirping birds enjoying the morning sun. Korra's stomach growled again various times over the morning until she finally decided to eat, a little past high noon. She drew her packet of Traveler's Mix from her rucksack and picked out some jerky from it, quickly stuffing it into her mouth. It was a wonder there was any meat left in the bag - she usually just picked it out and left the rest until she had nothing else. They had seventy-seven Yuans left, Korra reminded herself. Maybe she would stay in a hotel tonight - have a bath and a hot meal. Just in case they didn't come to a town, Korra ate very little and put the rest of her food away.

They passed through only one other town that day, and they were well past it by the time the sun began to dip toward the horizon again. When Korra began to think of setting up for the night, they could see no lights in the distance - so much for a bath and a hot meal. Korra got down from Naga, and stood in the road for a moment. What now? She stepped to Naga's head, where the polar-bear dog was panting from running, catching her breath, and Korra put a hand behind the animal's ear.

Naga sniffed at Korra's hip, where the leather rucksack Korra wore was hanging from one shoulder on sagging straps. She made a low whine, and Korra remembered that they had only stopped once today for Naga to catch something to eat. The ex-Avatar remembered hunting with her bending a long time ago, as her hand dug into the rucksack and drew out the rest of the Traveler's Mix. She wasn't hungry anyway - she didn't see herself eating anymore tonight, so she tore the paper bag open a bit wider so Naga would be able to fit her nose into it, and extended it to the polar-bear dog. Naga quickly caught on and hungrily scarfed down the remainder of their rations.

It wasn't late, but the sky had melted from a clear, pale blue to a light pink, that she could imagine fading into a violet purple and finally a dark, midnight black. The road ahead was straight and repetitive, and in the distance there was a steep hill with a tree on the top; it looked like some mythical kind of safe place, but she could never reach it on foot before she was tired, or even on Naga before the night fell. She could move them off the road, find a soft patch of dirt for them to sleep in, and then lay awake until she fell asleep, she supposed. If she _couldn't _fall asleep, she wondered, would she end up in tears again? Would she count the stars in the sky until her past saw an opportunity to attack her?

The idea of it sent a throb of soreness from last night's crying fit back into play. Spirits, she couldn't do that again. Not again.

No, when she lay down tonight, she wanted to be so tired that she couldn't possibly muster the energy to break down. She took a few ambling steps past Naga, along the road, and then a few more determined ones. She counted the steps; ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred. Korra got so far that she heard Naga padding after her, confused but following without qualm or question. Her eyes fell on the ground before her as she walked, and she thought for a while. Korra walked and thought until she was exhausted, her gaze sweeping only across the dirt of the road. When she was exhausted, her mind was weak, and the past _did _attack her again. This time she forced herself not to cry.

* * *

"_Run through the motions, Korra; it'll come back," Master Sheng repeated, brows coming down hard on a stern face, "Talent like yours doesn't simply vanish," he encouraged, and as much as she appreciated such kind words from an ordinarily hard-faced and emotionless man, she doubted them. This was the third 'training session' she'd had since Amon had taken her bending, since Bolin had died, since the city's remaining benders had been moved to a secure bunker a mile outside of it. It was the tenth day since all that, and it was still fresh in her mind._

_Korra didn't have the heart to tell her masters that it wouldn't come back - they needed her to be their savior. They were the only ones who hadn't yet given up on her. Her masters refused to believe that she - the Avatar - could lose her bending to a madman like Amon. Her bending had to be in there somewhere. Her earthbending Sifu went away, and told her to practice until she could no longer stand. She was fully prepared to do so._

_Six hours passed, and she stayed in the underground training room, keeping a horse stance and going through the motions. She didn't eat - she rarely did these days - and she wasn't tired. She'd only paused to go to the bathroom once, but since then, she had stood rooted to the spot, willing her bending back. This was the third session of this - and she couldn't bear for it to be the third time she told Master Sheng that she had made no progress. Still; it was._

_Sheng came back, heard her apologies, and went away, silent. Korra stayed in the training room, sat down on the floor and stared at it for a while._

_She had another session the next day, and the next. The outcome was always the same. Sheng gave up on her too, eventually, just like all the others._

* * *

A few more steps, Korra told herself. Just a few more steps and she could go to sleep. She wasn't even sure she _wanted _to go to sleep - and now she was too tired to do anything except that. And yet, she could keep walking if she told herself to; that much she knew. One more step, two more steps. If she put it to herself like that, she was sure she could walk all night. Naga gave a low groan of worry. Korra could almost hear the words in the noise. _'Stop now. Don't overdo it.'_

Korra ignored her animal friend and took some more steps, steps that were no longer determined and decisive, but rather sluggish and aimless. Korra felt her lower lip rolling over and she forced it to stiffen again. '_Not again, please, please not again'. _She walked some more. She'd walk through hell and high water, just _please, please no more tears. _Korra's foot finally stumbled, and she tripped on her own toes, going downward. She caught herself on her hands and stared at the ground for a moment. The grass, and the leaves in the trees and hedges rustled in the wind, and the noise echoed in her head.

Korra clenched her teeth hard. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't going to cry, dammit.

She couldn't make it to the grass to go to sleep now. But she could keep herself from being a great sobbing mess; she had failed Republic City and shed no tears for it, so why should she get to cry because she was having a rough time running from Mako? She wasn't going to cry. She was selfish, but not that selfish. Her elbows buckled and she went downward a little more, until the dirt was pressed to her cheek and she felt the bliss of sleep tickling the edges of her mind. There would be hours of peace before the dreams came to attack her too, and that was all she could think of - the bearable hours that she never remembered. Naga trod over to her and sniffed at her for a moment.

The last thing she recalled, before she fell asleep in the road, was Naga lying down next to her, curling up so that her great neck would keep her master warm. Naga settled like that for only a few moments before she realized something was amiss. Her sharp survivalist senses snapped into action and she quickly jumped back to her feet, baring her teeth defensively and turning her eyes to the hedge, getting down on her haunches, ready to pounce.

A lantern emerged from the hedge on one side of the road, a brown-eyed face behind it illuminated by its glow.

* * *

"Well, looks like this is where we split," Tooki made a hat-tipping gesture at Mako, though he wore no hat. Mako hopped down, gave a half-hearted smile of the thankful variety, and watched at Tooki snapped the reins to send his cart further west. Mako stood at the fork in the road for a while, and watched the cart disappear over the crest of the hill on which the left road was worn. He looked around, noted the scenery in a vague, disinterested fashion, and drew a breath. Time to get walking again.

He had made up some time - yesterday he had been twelve days behind her, and today he had to be only ten behind, thanks to a kick up in the wind that had caused Tooki's elephant-horses to spook and pick up the pace a few times throughout the day. He'd never have gotten here this fast on foot - that much he knew. Heck, If Korra had slowed up, even a little, he might have made three days gain instead of two today.

Mako judged the time by the light of the sky - it wasn't yet dark, but the cool blue (with scattered clouds) of midday had faded to a nice shade of pink that reminded him of sunset walks in Republic City central park - as stupid as that sounded in his head - with mosquitoes here and there, pinching at what skin he had exposed whenever he didn't expect it. For the most part, he kept himself bundled up, even in the hot weather, but occasionally he had to roll his sleeves up or loosen his scarf to let some cool air in. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, a hand came up to touch the red wool wrapped around his collar, his eyes fixed on the ground before him.

This wasn't cutting it; traveling on foot. He needed to up his game if he really wanted to catch Korra before the last of Republic City's benders were equalized. If he didn't get her back to save the city in time, there wouldn't be a city left to save, and all this would have been for nothing. Mako wondered if he had been okay with this snail-paced tracking partially because in many senses he was terrified of finding Korra. What would they say to each other? There were a million things he needed to say to her, and he couldn't decide which should be the first.

Mako had stopped in only one town with Tooki today, and he'd got down from the cart to wander around while the courier got something to eat. He'd found a stall selling various little trinkets; jewelry and woodcarvings, for the most part, but a few more sophisticated items like music boxes and the sort had been littered amongst such things. He had picked up a bone-beaded armband to give to Korra when he found her, but gotten rid of it not long after. He never really planned to give her such items, deep down; he just didn't have anything else to remember her by. She wasn't the sentimental type, and she had taken all her things on running from him those years ago.

It was almost as if she'd done her very best to tell Mako to forget her, without having to actually say goodbye.

A bittersweet smile ghosted across the lower half of his face, not quite reaching his eyes, as he pondered this concept. Forget her. What a stupid idea. She shouldn't have been surprised he was following her - how long had she expected him to sit tight in Republic City, waiting for her to come back? And he had, for a while. He had spent weeks directing what sentries the White Lotus had been able to afford him to search the bay and every inch of the city to find Bolin, and hoping that Korra would come back, sorry and smarter and able to fix things. He knew he hadn't said as much, but he had never really given up on her. He audibly grunted to the wind.

What a mess. Everything, all of this - it was all one big, tangled mess.

Mako looked up from the ground to get a better view of his surroundings; to try to spot a town or village on the horizon. Luck was on his side yet again; at the back of the world was a single shining light. A town, a farm, whatever it was, there had to be faster modes of transport there. Mako didn't stop for the night this time. He had to find her now - no excuses. He could sleep at night when he was making decent progress in the day. Until then, he could stand to do a little extra walking. Korra had run away from her responsibility to Republic City, and that was on her head, but finding her was on his head, because it was his fault she had left in the first place - that much he could admit to himself.

Mako's gaze shifted from the light in the distance to the road Tooki had gone down. The cart was long gone, and he was alone again.

But not for long.


	6. To Care

The amplified sound of a flute shot through Korra's head, and her hands went up to clutch it. A bittersweet melody was playing, its tune sharply slicing at her senses like a rusty blade. She was curled up on the ground, surrounded by a bright, cold light, her head screaming in protest against the haunting buzz of the lullaby, her eyes staring out at pure, brilliant white, echoes of pale, baby blue, and light tones of a beautiful pink that may or may not have even been there. One hand groped out, coming free of Korra's sweaty hair, and grasping at the white in front of her.

It crunched in a painfully familiar way. Snow.

Korra blinked at the frost in her palm for a moment, clenching her teeth and staring in confusion, a shiver playing down her spine as the music continued. A faint voice began to speak over the flute, and the cold of her surroundings seeped into her muscles. It was so cold; she was shivering, curled up in the snow. The voice became louder, and the music faded a little. The voice didn't speak, but it hummed, along to the flute. It was vaguely familiar - like something she remembered from infancy.

The voice continued to hum, in this way that made Korra want to think everything was okay, and she sucked her limbs to her chest, folding herself into a ball to keep warm. The music was no longer loud enough to be painful, but it was still unsettling in the background. The humming assured her everything was alright. She didn't need to be scared. Korra was safe. Something about that realization made the cold of the snow seem less abrasive. Safety, security, reassurance - the corners of her mouth tilted up, her eyes softening a little. The voice was her mother's.

The wolves in the distance howled, and the safe feeling invading her mind quickly dissipated. The humming continued, only this time it felt like the vipercrab's venom, lulling its prey into a false sense of security. Korra's eyes shot open and darted around, as her arms and legs tried to unravel from her torso. She was frozen stiff, unable to move. The cry of the wolves was louder when it came again, and it came over the sound of a dozen, sharp-clawed paws thundering through the snow. Korra clenched and unclenched her muscles in an attempt to loosen them, to get up and run, or defend herself.

The wolves were coming for her blood, and she was helpless to stop them.

Korra's eyes slowly slid open, hazily at first, before falling shut again. She was exhausted; she could sleep for eternity, and then some. She pulled the sheets up over her ears, relishing the warmth surrounding her. She wasn't cold at all, now. The wolves and the snow, they were just part of her dream. Her brow came down for a moment. It wasn't supposed to be warm like this, was it? She wasn't supposed to have a soft pillow under her head, or sheets to keep her cozy. So why did she? Korra pushed her eyes open again, and instead of seeing bright, sky blue above her, or dusty ground ahead of her, she saw the tan colors of a rustic room straight ahead, where she lay on her side in a cot.

There was a moment where she wondered if this was right, but she had forgotten something, before she truly panicked.

The sheets came away with one swift sound like the rolling of thunder, and her legs swung out from the warmth under the sheets, into the cool air of the room. Korra's eyes, now wide, shot around the room, vaguely noting the surroundings as she searched for answers, for escape routes. She glanced down at herself, and a wave of relief washed over her upon the realization that she was fully clothed. How had she gotten here? She could remember walking along the road, and falling, and then … and then the dream.

A hand inched up toward her head where she sat at the edge of the bed. Perhaps she had taken a hit to the head; it would explain why she was in some kind of infirmary, right? Korra's eyes panned over the room again, and decided that this was _not, _in fact, an infirmary. This was a bedroom - a guest bedroom in someone's house. There was a window to her left, with morning light of the overcast variety spilling into the room, and a cool breeze was rolling past her, reminding her of her dream. She rubbed at her temple with a fingertip, her brow scrunching with confusion.

The door on the other side of the room made a click and a whine, and her gaze snapped back up, wide and defensive. The door inched open, and a pair of deep brown eyes peered in to look at her. Korra drew back, her hands clenching on the edge of the bed under her. The door opened a little wider, and the owner of the eyes stepped into the room; a muscular farmer-type, young - young enough for her to give him a less-than-chaste once-over and not feel dirty for it. He had a square jaw and a soft look on his face, a mild smile worn on his lips.

Korra quickly regained herself. "W-where am I?" she asked, blinking inquisitively but narrowing her eyes carefully. "What happened?"

The man with brown eyes allowed his brows to tilt a little. "I found you unconscious - last night, in the road - and I brought you here, to my home. My name is Shizu," he gave a shallow bow-like nod of the head and smiled mildly. "There was a huge polar-bear dog attacking you, but I got rid of it," his mouth split into a wider smile - one of pride.

Korra felt her breath hitching in her throat, her eyes bulging. "What?" she snapped breathlessly, "You-," she paused and let her gaze fall on the floor again. What the heck was he talking about? Naga would never attack her - where would this stranger have gotten such a stupid idea? She groaned inwardly. People weren't used to seeing polar-bear dogs running around the place, she supposed. Naga was the first tamed one in existence. But surely the _saddle _would have been a pretty obvious indicator of domestication, right?

The smile on the stranger's face faded away when he noticed the panicky look on Korra's face.

Where was Naga now? Korra felt her throat and chest tightening. She needed to get out of here - to find Naga, and get going. She appreciated whatever this guy had done for her, but she had to go. She never stayed in one place long enough for leaving to be hard, and it wouldn't be this time. It was just another stop along her path. Mako was probably gaining on her; she wasn't making good time anymore. She was stopping early for the night, and taking too many breaks, and ending up in strangers' houses, and that wasn't a proactive way to be fleeing from the past. Korra worried about Naga - she probably didn't need to, but she worried all the same. Naga was the only really reliable thing in her life, and she wasn't about to lose her.

Shizu shifted, and moved a little closer to her. He lowered himself down to sit on the bed, a respectable distance from her. Korra barely noticed him, until he spoke. "You look like you've been through a lot," he said softly, slowly, and it sounded like he was being careful not to say the wrong thing. He was tiptoeing around her, trying to be polite, like she deserved politeness from kind strangers.

Korra glanced at him sharply, meaning to give him the cold and detached look, and then stopped at the warm, concerned way he watched her. She didn't know why, but her mind reminded her that it was almost the exact same look Mako had given her when she was hurt or upset, those years ago. She stared at him, confused, and he was staring back, and it was all incredibly strange. She furrowed her brow a little more. Why was he being so nice to her? He didn't owe her anything, and he probably wouldn't be so kind if he knew who she was. A part of her welled and thrived under the warmth and reassurance with a little bit of kindness, but she quickly forced it down. She was leaving. Slowly and reluctantly, she allowed, "I guess," not quite sure what to say in reply to his statement. This was so strange. So different from …

* * *

_Korra whimpered, every part of her body sore from chi-blocker attacks and emotional trauma, and her right arm broken in two places where it lay draped over her middle. Bolin. Her bending. Everyone … the city… she couldn't gather the energy to make sense of such things. She was weak. She was a failure. Someone was carrying her to a cot in a dimly lit room, underground. Her good arm reached over her injured one to feel her carrier's shirt, to see if she could place it._

"_Stay still," a voice spat in disgust above her, and her heavy eyelids rolled open for her to try to see the owner of the voice. It sounded familiar, and yet, not._

_Korra narrowed her eyes in the dark to get a better look, her fingertips pressed on the fabric of her carrier's coat, her head loosely supported by the carrier's upper arm. She saw an angled jaw, a hard-set mouth and beautiful, golden eyes that stared forward with only hate in them. She felt her throat tightening, and she squeaked out a weak, "M-Mako," as her fingers caught the end of his scarf. "You're okay," she murmured, before the words even entered her mind._

_Mako clenched his jaw above her, and Korra hated to admit to herself that the look on his face and the way he tensed __**scared **__her. "No," he growled, stopping in his tracks and continuing to stare dead ahead, "No, I am _not _okay," he set his lips in a hard line, his brows coming together and his breath coming in restraining puffs. He was holding himself back from saying what he wanted to; Korra knew it. "Bolin …" he began, and he choked - Korra swore she could see him cursing himself for it - before continuing, with more control, "My little brother is dead," he spat, and then swallowed hard._

_Korra stared up at him, her eyelids heavy, though her eyes were wide and wet. "I'm-," she stopped, because he was lowering her down, to a cot, and she winced at the way his movement jostled her broken arm. He didn't so much as reach for the sheets to cover her, he just put her down and left her lie there. He stood straight and looked away. He couldn't bring himself to even look at her. She whimpered his name, "Mako," and it was pleading, begging him not to go._

_Mako turned away from her. "I …" he breathed in hoarsely, "I hate you," he finally said, before turning away and leaving her alone._

_Korra stared after him, unable to get up, unable to stop him, unable to even _beg _him to please, __**please, **__don't go. But he did go, and he left her, in more ways than one. He left her hurt and broken and failed. He left her to be with her horrible, weak, loathsome self. There couldn't be any punishment worse than that. He hated her. He hated her with every fiber of his being._

* * *

Shizu's smile returned for a moment, and she watched him carefully. This was so weird, and it really shouldn't have been. He was a nice, handsome stranger who had carried her into his house, and she was a complete stranger who'd secretly failed the world, and Korra thought she should've known how to handle such a situation. But she didn't. She had kept herself so far away from people and their kindness - kindness she didn't deserve - that she had no idea how to react to it. "Go back to sleep," Shizu suggested with a smile, "I'll make you something to eat." And he got up. Korra stared at him, lost and confused. She hadn't even explained to him why she'd been unconscious in the road, and he was offering her breakfast.

Korra stared at his back as he moved back to the door - looked him over again. He had long, silky, wavy brown hair in a low, loose ponytail, and tan skin. Korra guessed him for an earthbender - that must have been how he'd 'gotten rid' of Naga. He had a confident, bold way of moving that she could only attribute to the art of Oma and Shu. Bolin had moved like that, she remembered. He hadn't been quite as bold in his movements, but his body language had been in a similar vein. Korra felt a pang of grief doubling through her at the thought of her old friend.

Shizu glanced back over his shoulder at her, and gave another one of those unsettling, warm smiles, before he took the door handle in his hand and turned it. Korra didn't know if he was overly friendly, or if she was just extremely unpracticed in socializing by this point. She also didn't know why she desperately wanted to take his suggestion on board - to go back to sleep and wait for him to bring her a hot meal. Korra sat on the bed and watched him pull the door open - past him she could see a hallway and some other doors, perhaps another two bedrooms and a bathroom, and a staircase down to a lower level.

She knew this was the point where she was supposed to say she appreciated everything he'd done but she had to get going, but the words never made it to her mouth. He left the room, shut the door with a gentle click, and Korra stared at the empty space before her. It had been so long since she'd had a bed to sleep in, and hot food on its way to her. It had been even longer since someone had been this nice to her. Korra turned her gaze to the pillow beside her. She was tired enough to go back to sleep, she supposed. Slowly, she leant toward the pillow and pulled her legs back onto the bed.

Korra only meant to lie there and wait, but before she knew it, she was sleeping again - this time, dreamlessly.

* * *

It took Naga four hours to break free of the earthbender's imprisonment in the road; four hours clawing at the same place until the structure finally caved and crumbled around her and she was no longer surrounded by darkness. The moon was out, and she could see the road ahead and the road behind. Korra was gone. The polar-bear dog sat back on its haunches and raised a paw, tilting her canine head back and howling at the sky. Naga howled as loud as she could, and listened for her friend to howl back over the distance, but heard nothing. She got to her paws again and sniffed the ground.

There were no footsteps to follow, no scent left by the one who had taken her master. Naga circled the spot in the road where Korra had collapsed, savoring the smell and memorizing it. The trail of Korra's scent went back along the road for the long stretch over which the ex-Avatar had walked herself into exhaustion, and then it faded back into Naga's own canine smell, one she knew better than anything else.

The polar-bear dog sat in the road and looked around, howling a little more - hoping for her companion to come back. When she finally realized Korra wasn't coming, she hung her head and flattened her velvety ears to her skull, giving a mournful whimper of worry. She got up again and slowly followed her own smell, back along the road. Maybe Korra had gone home - back to Chungs.

Naga's head went up again, as did her ears at the thought. Korra must have gone home. The polar-bear dog lunged herself forward into a gallop, racing back along the path she had followed with her master. She covered ground like it was nothing; she ran like her life depended on it. She had to find Korra. Naga didn't stop at all along the road, as she tore up the ground under her, sprinting for the closest thing she could imagine as home - she only slowed up to a trot, and when her energy returned, she accelerated again to a gallop.

Dirt jumped up as Naga's sharp claws dug through the road under them, dirtying her snow-white underside and the straps beneath her saddle. Such things meant little to Naga, of course. She cared only for finding her Korra.

* * *

It had been three days since Mako and Tooki had parted ways. He'd taken fourteen messages to carry west, one which was from a girl to her lover, who happened to be working far away to bring in money to pay for their wedding, another from an older gentleman who exchanged correspondence with his younger sister, who was much further west than any of the other addressees, staying in a town to look after her dying son and his children. A lot of the people who sent these messages couldn't write - he attributed this to how few schools he saw around these parts - and he had offered to put their words on paper for them, earning more money for his work.

He earned one hundred and thirty-two Yuans for taking these messages, seven of which were already delivers and seven of which had yet to be. It wasn't enough for an ostrich-horse (he still had no idea how to ride one, but he guessed he'd have to learn if he wanted to catch up to Korra), but if he kept taking messages and delivering them, over time he was sure he could accumulate enough to purchase one. Mako had made his way on the streets of Republic City, looking after his younger brother at the same time. This would be easier; he was alone. That had to make it a little easier.

Mako wandered along the road, even as it passed through a field of cow-pigs, and carefully stepped on the high, dry parts of the pockmarked mud to avoid getting dirty. Not that he looked like any kind of diplomat, the way he traveled, but he liked to keep himself tidy. Mako wasn't the type to abide unkemptness - it had been one of Korra's fascinations, back in the day. She'd probably have called him some less-than-manly name for _tiptoeing _across the mud, before the fallout of Republic City. As if that could be casually brushed aside, he murmured darkly inside his own mind.

Mako wondered what the deal with Bolin had been, the last time they'd spoken. His brother had seemed anxious, as though he'd done something wrong. A wave of worry washed over Mako, and it took over the features on his face. He hoped Bolin was being careful - staying safe. He hoped he wasn't doing something stupid like underground pro-bending. The firebender's brows furrowed at the thought.

He lowered his dark-circled eyes to the ground. It had been three days since he'd been walking on foot again. He'd covered twice as much ground as he would have if he'd been sleeping through night, and in doing so, he was sure he had gained at least a day on her. He had slept perhaps an hour each night, on some internal instinct. Mako had told his body to wake up after an hour of sleep, and it obeyed. He was exhausted, yes, but he had to catch her. He couldn't wait to buy that ostrich horse - the idea of a long night's sleep was appealing to him already.

Mako imagined he looked like shit, with dark circles under his eyes and most likely, leg muscles that could top those toned ones Korra had in her sleek, tanned upper arms. He wondered if she was still strong, if she'd weakened without her bending. Had she kept herself in top condition, physically? The idea of taking her down with a single attack crossed his mind. When he started thinking about her being unpracticed in her self-defense, he couldn't help but imagine her as a little bit … helpless. Korra - the old Korra - would have mutilated him for such a thought.

What if she was weak and frail from little food and little sleep? What if she was thin and pale and sick? What if chasing her was making her worse?

Mako stiffened his brow and set his jaw. The old Mako would have blanched at the idea of his Korra hurting. The old Mako would have bit his lip at the idea of causing her extra suffering. But he had changed, just as she had. They were different people now; not the same young, naïve lovers that had curled up together and had their own little world under the sheets. No, they were changed. He was bitter and angry, and it was her fault his world had crumbled around him. She was evasive and selfish, and she wouldn't own up to her mistakes.

This wasn't about him, about her, about _them. _This was about Republic City and its Avatar. He had waited for a long time for Korra to come back, to do the right thing. He had believed she would do the right thing. But two years after the fall of his home, and Avatar Korra was just a name on the wind, an image in the shadows. There were innocent people losing everything they had to Amon and his idealism, every single day. Mako had always believed it was his job to look after Bolin first, and himself second, and everything else was moot, but two years of watching women screaming their children's names, of children - innocent _children - _staring at the masked monster as he took their bending away, of men screaming their agony as they laid down their lives to protect their families … Mako couldn't be selfish after that. Those people needed their Avatar. That was what this was about.

The road stretched out before him as he walked, and shades of gray and blue crossed the sky above, as the wind took the long grass in waves at either side of the path. Ahead of him, the horizon was flat, and the land was level with everything else. No hills, no valleys, no lakes or ponds. The land was an endless expanse, with only a blurry flash of white, straight ahead. Mako brought his hand over his brow to stare into the distance, blocking the sun out of his sight.

The blur was moving fast toward him, and an instinct in his gut told him to get out of the road. He stood to one side and kept his golden eyes fixed on the white.

The thought crossed his mind before the image reached it. Naga. For a moment, he guessed it was Naga, and hoped it was Naga, before he actually _knew _that it was Naga. The polar bear dog raced toward him, at a heedless gallop. Mako felt the surprise on his face lifting into joy; it was the first surefire sign he had gotten of Korra's existence, aside from the paw prints in the road, in all of his five months' travel. Why were they coming back this way? Why, why? Had Korra decided to make things right? Had she finally …

The joy slowly fell from his face, and Mako's stomach fell into his boots. Naga was _alone_.

The implications of this sent sharp, choking sensations through his chest.

"No," he heard himself whisper, a lump forming in his throat. "Korra," he murmured breathlessly, his mind racing, and his brows came down over his widening eyes. Naga recognized him only as she got within smelling distance of him, and barked a gleeful, relieved bark at the sight of him. The polar-bear dog's paws dug into the dirt in a slide-stop as she barreled toward him. Mako felt one of his hands clutching at the fabric over his chest, tugging at the strap over his shoulder. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

The travel pack across his torso came off over his head and he threw it to the ground, breaking out in a mad dash toward Naga, who had stopped a few yards from him. Before he knew what he was doing he had taking the animal's great head in his arms and pulled it into a hug - Mako didn't know if he had done it right, as he hadn't hugged someone since leaving Bolin five months ago - and Naga whined out in her throat, a noise that only made Mako worry more. Something had happened to Korra. Naga would never have left Korra's side unless something had happened.

Naga was breathing hard, having sprinted to him from wherever she had last been with Korra. Mako held Naga's head in his arms for a long time, pressing the side of his face to the dirty, soft fur, squeezing his eyes shut and thinking hard. Naga whined again, and licked at his hand, where it rest on her nose. It was amazing Naga still recognized him, he noted, in a corner of his mind, as the rest of it reeled and spun.

Naga pulled her head free of his embrace, once she caught her breath, and gave him a nice, sloppy lick across the front of his coat, and what she could catch of his scarf with her tongue. He wiped himself, wearing a mixed look of bittersweet happiness and terrified concern. The polar-bear dog's eyes fixed on him in an expectant way. _'Where's Korra?' _they asked.

Mako swallowed and stepped back, before he ran to grab his pack from the road. He slung it across his torso and ran back to Naga. Korra was in trouble.

Everything else faded with that thought in his mind.


	7. To Worry

It had been four days since Korra and Naga had been separated. Korra had explained to Shizu that Naga was actually traveling with her - as embarrassing as that had been for him - and that she was a little bit lost now, without her. Shizu had apologized vehemently, and offered to make it up to her. He promised to help her search the area for Naga. Korra greed, albeit with reservations, and they spent the first three days surveying the fields and overgrowths of the land surrounding the farm. During that time, Korra found that she really enjoyed Shizu's company.

As it were, he hadn't grown up on a farm - he was from a town a lot further south - but he'd come into some inheritance money, with which the thirty-acre farm had been purchased. His family all thought he was a nutcase for it, trying to set up on his own (as a farmer, no less!), but Shizu was convinced he could do it. He asked Korra about herself. She could tell him only lies; her name was Tenka, and she was from the northern tribe, but she wasn't a bender, and her parents were dead. Shizu gave his condolences, offering his hand to help her through some underbrush.

His company was refreshing - he asked every so often how she was feeling, and if she needed a break. Korra was sure she'd never been so vigilantly taken care of, at least not since childhood. She felt guilty for accepting his kindnesses, especially since she was doing so by keeping her true identity a secret, but she couldn't help it. She liked this warmth too much, and she was going to repay him for it. She'd find a way to. If she were a little more concerned with things of that vein, Korra might have thought she was in love with Shizu, for the way she enjoyed being with him. She seriously doubted that, though. He was a nice guy - that was all there was to it.

It had been four days of rest and friendship and something akin to happiness, since Korra had last seen Naga. She should have been more worried about her animal friend, and she'd be lying if she didn't feel at least a little bit guilty for _not _feeling that worry, but Naga was a big girl, and although she knew she didn't deserve this time to rest, she had to stop for a little while at _some _point or another, right? The polar-bear dog hadn't been anywhere near the road when they had searched it and the surrounding forestry, so Korra could only imagine she was around here somewhere. She would find her friend when she needed to.

'_And if I don't?' _a niggling voice at the back of her mind asked, and Korra felt a wave of worry wash over her. What if she didn't? What if she failed Naga, just like she'd failed everyone else? What if Naga was hurt or lost? What if she was just sitting here wasting time, while Naga starved and Mako gained on them? Crap, and even now she was more worried about Mako finding her than she was about Naga - the one _true _friend she had left, the one person (well, almost person) she could really count on. She was selfish - single-minded and stupid. It was like she had tunnel-vision or something!

"Everything alright?" Shizu's voice cut into her thoughts, and she looked up from where she sat on the grass, a dumpling in one hand dangling over her knee. He was watching her with deep, thoughtful brown eyes, with an endless supply of patience and an inexhaustible fondness for her. She gave a nod and lifted the dumpling to her mouth to take a graceless bite. He gave a soft laugh, like she was the most amusing, interesting creature he had ever come across. Korra kept her gaze fixed on him, through the corner of her eye, while she ate.

They were sitting in beneath a copse of trees, the sunlight sparkling through the leaves to form patches on the grass. It reminded Korra of many walks in Central Park, back in the city long ago, most of them with Mako. Gray clouds were crawling toward the sun with their usual, ominous determination, but Korra never worried that rain would dull Naga's sense of smell. Naga would find her - she had before, in much worse and much more difficult circumstances.

Korra blinked slowly, dusting the crumbs from her snack off her tattered brown shirt, and cleared her throat to speak. "So you're a farmer," she began, trying to take hold of the conversation before it started - to make sure he didn't start asking questions again. "Don't farmers … I don't know … _farm_?" she arched a brow, allowing the corner of her mouth to tilt up a little bit.

Shizu's soft smile broke into a sheepish grin, and he raised his free hand - the other was holding a rice ball - to rub at the back of his head. "I haven't actually been on the farm for long," he explained with an almost apologetic glint in his eye, "I intended to plant something easy to look after, but I kind of missed my chance. You're supposed to plant in Spring, right?" Shizu tore his gaze from Korra to an interesting patch of grass before him.

Korra's lips pressed against one another like the opening of a drawstring pouch. "Summer's nearly over," she thought aloud, "Shouldn't you have hay to cut?"

Shizu continued to look indecisive. "There's a small, overgrown paddock behind the house that could be cut, I guess, but everything else is pockmarked and full of chickweed. That's how I was able to afford so much land," he dropped his hand from the back of his head to his lap, and lifted the other one to take a bite of his rice ball, drawing a long breath. It was arguably the first _not-_happy thing he'd said since she'd met him. He'd been so nice to her that it was only natural for Korra to want to repay him - to help him in some way. And she'd been on a farm for the past two years. She knew farming just as well as she'd known bending, a time ago.

* * *

"_Come on," Korra smirked, a ball of fire held high over her head and her feet planted on the ground at shoulder-width. Four equalist chi-blockers sat at the end of a long, scorched skid-mark on the sidewalk, sprawled in various defeated positions, one steadied on his hands behind him and tucking his legs up to get up again. "Give me a challenge," she tossed the flame up a foot into the air, like a training ball, and caught it in her palm again. They had attacked her on her early-morning commute between Mako's bedroom and hers on the island, the one she took each day to be sure Tenzin didn't know about their 'intimacies'. _

_The first one got up and cartwheeled out of her sight - she didn't turn, choosing instead to keep her eyes on the other three as they clambered to their feet. Mako would have told her not to let a single one of them out of her sight, but there was something off about this attack. There were four here, instead of forty. Either Amon was downsizing, or this just wasn't his week. She'd taken out a whole shipload of explosives, two days ago, before he could get them to wherever his headquarters was._

_Sharp jabs and quick dodges, Korra remembered, was the chi-blockers' style - so when the one behind her thrust his pointed fingers at her, she reversed his technique and dodged, before jabbing at him as he tried to do the same. He was too slow, though, and her knuckle collided with his brow sending him reeling backward and onto his back - probably concussed. Korra wasn't going to let her guard down though - just because they were down, didn't mean they were out. The others seemed to take this as a wake up call, and all leapt up at once. She eyed them for a moment, noting their positions, noting their styles, noting the inherent … **offness.**_

_Korra didn't know if she was imagining this, but the first time she'd taken on chi-blockers, she had hit the dirt fighting one-on-one. She had been with Mako, chasing to rescue Bolin, and one chi-blocker had neutralized a life's worth of bending training in only seventeen sharp punches in the right places. And now, here she was with four chi-blockers all struggling to keep up with her. Korra was confident, she'd admit, but not confident enough to think she'd gotten _that much _better in only a few weeks. Yes, they were losing, but they also hadn't broken a sweat. This wasn't right. This was some kind of … _distraction_._

_Korra felt her bravado quickly dissipating, and the chi-blockers seemed to realize that she had caught on, immediately upping their game. Her airbending training came in handy when it came to dodging, but with them fighting at full-ability, she was easily outnumbered. Still, they left her on her feet. They backed off when her footing was unsteady, like it was programmed into them. They had their orders, she assumed; they weren't to chi-block her, but to keep her here, to keep her busy. A shiver went down her spine at the thoughts that raced to her head._

_Amon was landing a blow on the city while she was here locking horns with these four. Had to be. That was the only logical explanation._

_This street had been quiet when Korra had first stepped foot on it, but now with the shouting between her and the chi-blockers, along with various sounds of earth crunching and fire flaring out, people had leapt out of bed and onto their balconies to see what the hubbub was about. One of them was racing out their front door to the public phone on the sidewalk, but a bolo quickly whipped toward the man and cut him off at the ankles. Korra was suddenly painfully aware of how deep in the city Mako and Bolin's new apartment was. In the pro-bending attic, she had been able to see the island from the bed, and now she was getting lost on her way to the bay._

_What a time to not know north from south, she mused darkly, ducking out of the way of a flying hand._

_That was when she heard an earth-shattering, reality-defying explosion that rattled her teeth and made her shudder in her boots, and when the chi-blockers shadowed her vision with noxious green clouds from their smoke bombs. Her eyes squeezed shut and batted at the air, her ears still ringing from the blast and her nerves as taut as a corset - and taking her breath away in the same manner. The chi-blockers disappeared, and when the smoke cleared, the only thing she could see was a thick black smog shooting into the sky atop dancing orange flames, the likes of which she had never seen before._

_Another explosion shook the city, and another skyscraper erupted in flames. Korra was awestruck, lost. Helpless. The first skyscraper slowly leant to one side, and the severe weight of what was happening hit her like the descending, giant of a building ahead of her. This was the end. This was Amon's power play, his attempt to take the city for himself and to turn the tables on benders. This was the last stand._

* * *

Korra pulled her mouth to one side with an accidental pout that slowly shifted to a hesitant smile. She pushed the images of her mind away. "I happen to know my way around a farm, if you want some help," she offered mildly, eyes shifting between Shizu and the shady grass they had stopped to eat in. They had taken a break from looking for Naga to do so, since Shizu was adamant about making sure she was fed and happy. The earthbender in question suddenly whipped his wide, surprised gaze to the secretly failed Avatar, rice around his mouth and his cheeks full with the gratuitous amount of food in it.

"You'd-," he began with a full mouth, then swallowed to speak more clearly, "You'd do that?" and then he blinked a few times, before shaking his head. "That's … that's really not necessary. I mean, if you're trying to repay me, you know," he made a hand gesture indicating that she needn't feel indebted to him, "I helped you because I wanted to, and in all honesty you'd probably have been fine - no, better off - if I hadn't done anything," his sheepish smile returned, and he looked a little shamefaced for even thinking about allowing her to help him on the farm. The embarrassment for mistaking Naga for a wild animal outside its natural habitat - wearing a saddle, no less - returned to his cheeks in a bright blush.

Korra heard a noise from her mouth that she hadn't heard in a long time. She giggled - and not in a childish kind of way, but rather in a genuinely, warmly amused way that naturally came to her at the heat rising to Shizu's face. As soon as she noticed it, Korra tried to push it down. She was just trying to repay her debt, and although he seemed to think that was unnecessary, to her it was. She didn't deserve kindness, and she had to make it worth his while. Korra wasn't here to make girly giggles and lead him on. She kicked herself inwardly, coughing awkwardly into her hand.

As much as she hated herself for the giggle, Shizu's face lit up at it. This made her kick herself even harder. She drew a breath to calm herself and shook her head a little. "Look," she began with a smile, a smile she was wary of, "I want to help you," she reasoned, determined. "And face it, you _need_ help," she pushed her brows up expectantly. A small part of her allowed the realization that in that sentence, she felt a little like her old self again. She wondered idly if she was finally starting to heal.

Shizu watched her for a moment, fighting off the grin that obviously wanted to jump to his face, trying to come to a decision. He wanted her to stick around - that much was clear - but he also didn't want to make her do anything she didn't really want to. Korra could read him like a book, and that made her feel a little … safer. Shizu's face softened just a little bit, and he looked both defeated and relieved. She knew what his decision was, long before he said it.

He stuck out a hand to shake and grinned. "I accept your offer," he said formally, with a slight bow of the head.

Korra snorted another laugh and grabbed his hand, shaking it roughly. "Good," she released him and quickly got up. "Now let's go see what we can get done before dinner."

"What about your polar-bear dog?" Shizu asked slowly, gathering his legs up under him and dusting crumbs off his lap.

'_Yes - what _about _Naga? I can't just leave her out there!' _her mind screamed at her. Naga was as intelligent - perhaps more so - than a lot of people Korra had net in her life, but she was still her responsibility, still her friend. But they had walked that stretch of road over fifty times, calling out the animal's name at the tops of their voices and getting no reply. They had searched every inch of the small forests on either side of the road, doing the same, and still nothing. Korra wanted to believe Naga was nearby - that they had just missed one another in their searches - but there was nothing to suggest that. A thought occurred to her, and she felt her gut twisting.

What if Naga had gone _back?_

A breath hitched in the ex-Avatar's throat. What if Naga had headed back toward Chung's, confused? What if Naga crossed paths with Mako and recognized him and … oh sweet _spirits, _they'd catch up to her in no time at all, especially if she was staying here, in one place. True, Naga hadn't found her the first time she'd searched (Korra refused to believe Naga's first reaction would be to just run back to Chung's) but Naga was an expert tracker. If she hadn't left a scent trail the night Shizu had 'rescued' her, she most definitely had with all the pacing up and down the road, shouting out the animal's name. But that wasn't the only possibility. That was one plausibility alone. She had to make sure that it wasn't the one in play.

"Let's go check the road again," Korra began slowly, a hand patting at her lap - she wanted to check the prints in the road again, to see if they headed back east. Korra extended a hand to Shizu to help him up, and did so with one sharp tug that could have yanked his arm out of the socket. He shot her a look and rolled his eyes, and Korra grinned a little bit. It was a good thing he didn't know much about the water tribes, Korra decided - he would know then that Polar-bear dogs didn't live at the North Pole. She was most certainly not complaining.

"Not funny," he declared, and nudged her with his elbow, biting back a grin of his own.

Korra smiled at him and nudged him back, a lot rougher. He tumbled sideways and nearly fell over, and Korra burst out laughing. This was nice; this was so easy, and so warm, and so different. It was like home, back with her parents, except with someone she wouldn't mind _being _with. She didn't deserve this at all, but it was wonderful. Shizu was so kind to her, so accepting, so generous. Nothing like her. He was everything she _should _have been, back in the city. And on top of that, Korra was sure that he didn't have a mean bone in his body. She almost wanted to tell him who she really was.

But she couldn't be that person now. She wanted to be Tenka - she wanted to be from the North Pole.

They walked through the woods again, back to the road, and Shizu started calling out Naga's name with his hands cupped around his mouth, whistling every now and then for her. Korra leant down and examined the paw prints in the dusty road. They were long swipes and gripping paw landings - and most certainly not trotting or cantering ones. Galloping thumps of Naga's footsteps trailed back toward Chung's. Back toward _Mako._

Korra didn't know whether to stop worrying or to start.

* * *

Mako stopped the polar-bear dog with a steady pull back on the reins. Naga threw her mass against his in the reins and tried to lurch forward, but Mako held her fast. She coughed again, in that same dusty manner, but pressed on. Mako clenched his jaw and gave a weighty verbal command. "_Whoa_," he insisted, his voice imposing. Naga suddenly whipped her head and snapped her teeth at him - aiming for his foot in the stirrup, no doubt. "Hey!" he shouted out sharply, brows pushing down. Naga's whole body jerked under him with another dusty cough.

Naga had run herself into the ground in her panic over Korra, and as well as he knew the feeling, he had to make her stop and rest. They had been running since the meeting in the road, and Naga had never left a gallop in that time. Whatever stops they had made had been short-lived, ending with a circling Naga insistently nudging Mako toward the saddle. He was tired, and the polar-bear dog even more so. They had made amazing time. Korra could be only a half-day ahead of them. They were so close. So damned close.

"We can stop, Naga," Mako said slowly, almost hesitant himself, leaning forward to pull himself out of the saddle. His leg swung over the back and his feet came free of each stirrup in turn. His legs jolted once he hit the dirt, and his backside twinged in discomfort; he wasn't used to riding at all, let alone for so long and so hard. Naga quickly whirled on him and snarled angrily, getting down on her front legs and barking wildly at him, jumping on her feet. "Stop!" he held a hand out warningly.

Naga snapped her jaw at his hand, and he leapt back, out of her range. She stared at him, defiant, determined and desperate. And still expectant. There was a whole unspoken paragraph in the meaningful glare she shot his way. Korra's name sprang to his mind with each moment the polar-bear dog watched him. Mako stood there, wondering what to do for a moment. Naga shuddered again and coughed against her own will. Eventually, she allowed herself to roll her tongue out of her mouth to pant properly.

The firebender slowly reached to his hip and pulled his water flask from his bag. He gestured carefully to the animal, unscrewing the cap. She needed to drink, and to eat. She probably needed to sleep too. Mako jiggled the opened flask in his hand, letting her hear the lapping of the water inside. "Come on. Drink," he suggested mildly, putting on a wary smile. Here he was, he thought to himself, out in the middle of nowhere and talking to a polar-bear dog. What a strange world it was.

Naga drew near, hesitantly, then snapped her jaw at him, grabbed the flask by its top and threw her head back, guzzling it all until it was gone. When she was done, she let it fall to the floor with a metallic clank. Then she tossed her head impatiently. _'Let's go, let's go, let's go! Korra, Korra! Let's go!' _Mako could almost read in her motions.

Mako reluctantly bent to pick up the flask, and slowly put it in his bag again. Naga barked and coughed again. "We're gonna stop for the night, Naga," Mako supplied, keeping his eyes on the ground as he moved to the thinned, dry grass beside the road, his travel pack coming off over his head. He never recalled seeing the animal like this with Korra, back in the good old days. If he was totally honest, he'd admit that he had no idea how to handle an impatient, barking, howling, biting polar-bear dog with something akin to ostrich-horse colic going on in its chest. Just like he'd never truly had an idea how to handle a moody, impatient, biting Avatar, a time ago.

Naga stamped her paws, clawed at the ground, got up on her back feet and yowled angrily. Let's go, let's go. Korra, Korra.

Mako lay down in the grass, put his bag under his head and pushed his scarf up over his eyes, seemingly to go to sleep. Naga barked and howled for a long time, but eventually hung her head, coughing dustily, and padded over to him. She sat down and then rest her chin on her paws, whining under her breath. Mako listened to her breathing heavily, thinking out loud in worried whimpers and grumbles. He knew just how she felt. Korra was in serious trouble - he knew it. A sense of foreboding had settled on him like a dark cloud since finding the polar-bear dog.

Naga's breathing eventually slowed, and she rolled to her side in her sleep. Mako finally pulled his scarf from his eyes and sat up, turning to glance back at Korra's animal guide. The firebender slowly got to his feet and walked over, unbuttoning his jacket and taking it off as quietly as he could. A gloved hand reached between Naga's front legs and felt a sweaty, burning heat across the animal's chest from the past few days' activities - which included galloping non-stop, no eating, barely any drinking, biting at Mako's feet and worrying constantly about Korra.

Mako sighed through his nose. She'd catch a chill if a draft hit her, so he draped his jacket over her as best he could. She was huge, and the jacket didn't do much, but it was something. Naga's eyes slid open, staring forward, and Mako froze in place. Then she gave a sad, mourning little sound at the back of her gritty throat, and the firebender felt his own chest tighten.

He tiredly sat down at her head, and she shifted it into his lap, one eye looking to him for some reassurance.

"It'll be okay," Mako tried, his brows tilting away from one another. "We'll find Korra," he added, trying to sound a little surer of himself. _'And if we don't?' _a niggling voice whispered at the back of his mind. No, Mako insisted in reply. They would find her. They _had to _find her. Where there's a will, there's a way, Bolin would have said. Bolin had also said that he didn't know what his brother would find on this journey to find the ex-Avatar. Mako hadn't really understood it at the time, but now he did. Up until now, he had thought the worst case scenario was that he could find nothing, but now ... now he was afraid he might find _remains_.

It had been about six days since Naga had left Korra. A lot could happen in six days.

Mako leant back and tucked his left hand behind his head, eyes staring straight up to the sky. The firebender's right hand smoothed at the soft fur between Naga's eye and her silky ear. He was on a mission, to bring the Avatar back to Republic City. And yet, the foremost thought in his head was not concern for the progress of his quest, but ice cold fear, wrenching at his gut and drilling at his conscience. What if she was dying? What if he never got to tell her he was sorry for the things he'd said?

The hand on Naga's brow came up to rub at Mako's. Was the last thing he ever said to Korra really going to be one of the harsh, hateful remarks he'd had for her two years ago instead of a sweet 'I love you'? Was their last contact really going to be a rough shove on the way to the mess hall in the White Lotus Bunker instead of a tight, lung-crushing Korra hug?

Stupid thoughts, the lot of them, Mako decided, screwing up his face. Stupid, because the Korra he had loved and the Mako that had loved her were already long dead, and buried in the ashes of a Republic City that now seemed a world away and an eternity ago.


	8. To Need

Mako had bad dreams regularly - more often than not, they were confusing and downright strange, alongside this inherent badness, but they were bad, like most things. Not bad-bad, but regular-bad. He had had these bad dreams ever since the night Bolin had fallen from an Equalist airship, and they hadn't stopped when he'd found his brother again. He could handle the regular bad dreams, the ones where Korra disappeared into the darkness, and the ones where Bolin died on the same night as their parents.

This particular morning, with Naga standing over him - feeling better after a night's rest, no doubt - Mako threw himself into a sitting position with a shout, breathing hard. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what the dream was five minutes later, but it had terrified him. There was a dead, slightly mangled squirrel on the floor beside him, and when he looked to Naga she looked extremely pleased with what she had gotten him for breakfast. As much as he appreciated the sentiment, he passed on the freshly killed rodent. Naga ate it herself in about a minute and a half. Mako collected his traveling pack and mounted the polar-bear dog standing over him, and the two set off on the scent trail Naga was following.

Naga was content to stick to a canter for a while, seeming to have calmed down after some sleep and something to eat, and they rode like that for about two hours. Mako was getting used to his, he thought gloomily. Initially, riding for an hour would make his behind, and inner thighs, sore for a whole day, but now he was sure he could ride for three days straight and come off with little more than a few shaky steps. How long had it been since he'd crossed paths with Naga? How long had it been since Naga had left Korra? How long could Korra have been …

Dead. The word stung him like a beetle-bee.

It was as he was pushing this concept out of his mind, as they cantered along a slightly up-hill road on the side of a mountain with a steep incline off to their right, that Naga stopped so suddenly, head flying upward so quickly, that Mako smacked the side of his face on the back of Naga's skull. Naga sniffed the air for a few moments and then made a surprised sound that Mako swore sounded like 'eureka'. The firebender had a half-second to grip the reins in his palms, and the saddle between his knees before the polar-bear dog was galloping along the road so fast that insects whizzed past him, close enough for him to hear them whistling past his ears. She could have shot out from under him if he had been too slow.

He held on. Naga had done her job - she had found Korra - and all he had to do was hold on and wait. In a few moments, the ex-Avatar could be standing in front of him, insufferably confused, but alive and well. Or, Mako couldn't help but mentally deadpan, she could be lying somewhere in a pool of her own blood. His train of thought was effectively severed when Naga jerked off the road, to the right - off the mountain. She sped toward a nice, deadly angle, and then leapt as if she believed she could fly. Mako was too shocked and confused to make a sound other than the strangled, wind-in-his-throat warbling noise that came out as Naga exploded into mid-air.

Mako wasn't aware he had come away from the saddle until his backside hit it with a thump, his hands clutching at reins and fur and his head ducked low to keep the wind from throwing him back out of the saddle. Naga angled herself carefully, pulling up her back paws and dropping her front ones to meet the downward slope. Mako jolted in the saddle again, this time with more grip and less flailing. The panic flooding his mind reminded him of the times Korra had decided to go for a joyride with him as her passenger, back in the city so long ago, in the good days, and it sent a pang of nostalgia through him. Naga began to slide down a muddy decline at a much more reasonable speed, and Mako was finally able to look up and ahead to a muddy, murky pond at the bottom of the mountain, and a small village in the distance.

Naga burst through the water, splashing it all over the both of them, but emerged from it relatively happy, with only a brief pause to allow her rider a moment to right himself. Mako shortened the reins in his hands, unwilling to let something like that happen again, slowly elevating his temperature just a little bit, to dry himself. He was sure the polar-bear dog looked more than a little smug, but that was irrelevant. They were close; Naga picked up the scent again and returned to the gallop, toward that village, and Mako found he was much more comfortable with his mount staying on the ground at all times.

The closer they got to the village, the more traffic they saw on the road - people walking with baskets in hand, carts loaded with goods stocked up on the road, selling to passersby. Luckily, Naga was going too fast for any of them to try to sell him anything, and the road opened out into the village, as buildings cropped up around them. Naga came to a slide-stop in the town, bunching her shoulders beneath the saddle and sniffing the air in a testing manner.

Mako caught funny looks being shot their way, but that was of little consequence. He tried to figure out why Naga had cut off the road, and turned his gaze back over his shoulder to the mountain. The road went directly west, albeit in a wide arc first; if they'd followed the road, they might have come to a point where a small side-road would have led to this village. She had cut past detour to save time. Smart, Mako mused with a slight nod to himself. With Naga having stopped for the moment to pick up the scent again from where they were, the firebender took the opportunity to hop down. He wasn't going to stop for breakfast while they were so close, but he could take a minute to get some more Travelers' Mix, and restock on water.

"Naga," he said sharply, as his feet hit the dusty ground and he fixed his gaze on the general store across the street. The polar bear dog look at him, still sniffing the air carefully. "Stay here until I come back," he raised a hand and gestured down to the ground under her. Naga gave an anxious little groan and slowly lowered her back end to sit down.

Mako walked brusquely across the dirt street to a wooden, aging building with a sign that said 'Goods' on it. He hopped up onto its porch and then stepped into the store, immediately overwhelmed by the smell of burnt cow-pig meat. There was a counter ahead of him, and a pale teenager behind it waving away smoke from a tin plate of jerky, and picking at the pieces that weren't black.

The teenager picked at the jerky for a whole fifteen seconds before Mako awkwardly cleared his throat to get the boy's attention. The boy jumped where he was standing and immediately assumed a straight-up position, forcing a nervous smile. Mako rolled his eyes and approached the counter, turning his pack where it hung on his shoulder, unbuttoning it and drawing out his water flask.

"Can I get a pack of Traveler's Mix, and a refill of water?" he drew out a few Yuan notes and put them down on the counter, along with his flask.

The kid nodded quickly and took the flask and the money, before trying haplessly to throw a discreet glance to the tip jar on the counter and ducking down to get the Traveler's Mix from beneath it. Mako arched his brow as the boy put the Traveler's Mix on the counter and then took the flask through the door behind the counter to fill it. Mako reluctantly put a five-Yuan note in the tip jar, and put his purchase into his pack. When the kid came back, he took his flask and left before he'd have to hear any thanks for the tip.

As he stepped out into the warm light of the sun, he saw Naga sitting right where he'd left her, watching the store he'd gone into, looking anxious. She pulled her eyes from him to something further up the street, and Mako followed what she was looking at. At first he just saw a bar with some people standing outside, and then he narrowed his eyes and paid closer attention. Three or four men in black and gray, of the look-at-me-and-I'll-kill-you variety, were standing around watching Naga with their hands hovering at their sides, itching to snap into bending stances.

Bounty hunters. Crap.

Most of the towns and villages out in the United Republic were outlandish, and didn't get too much news from the capitol. Up 'til now, Mako hadn't come across many bounty hunters, and he'd been able to keep his quest a secret from them where he had. A lot of rich, escaped crime lords from Republic City had put massive bounties on Korra's head, dead or alive. Those hired to catch her probably knew she traveled with a polar-bear dog, and that meant that they'd follow him and Naga out of here if they went after Korra. Mako cursed under his breath. He needed Korra alive; if she still _was _alive.

Mako drew a breath and considered his options. If he went to Naga and got into the saddle, they'd either be attacked or stalked - more likely the latter of the two. On the other hand, he supposed he could try to find Korra on his own, and leave Naga here. Would Naga stay here, though? Or would she follow him, and lead the bounty hunters straight to Korra? The firebender drew a terse breath, feeling his shoulders bunching with tension. It looked like he had to gamble on his best chance of finding Korra.

Mako stepped back into the store, and was immediately greeted by a grinning teenager, who opened his mouth to start thanking him endlessly for the tip - five Yuans wasn't pennies out here like it was back home - but the city boy raised a hand and shot the kid a deadly look. The kid quickly shut his mouth, looking scared.

"I need you to tell me something," Mako said slowly, pulling his brows down decisively. "Are there any farms around this village?"

It was obvious, of course. Back at that market, where he'd followed the old man to where Korra had been hiding, he'd asked people if they'd seen a girl of about nineteen, with shoulder-length brown hair, umber skin and cerulean eyes, about five-seven or five-eight, muscular and confident. Of course, nobody had; Korra probably looked different now, and probably didn't go out and show her face just for the heck of it. She was being careful. But if she was staying in one place - as she would have to, without Naga to carry her - she was hiding, and if she was hiding, she was working on someone's farm.

The kid raised a hand and pointed north. "Er, yeah there's a farm just between here and the east-west road," he answered slowly, confused as to why someone would ask that in such a threatening manner. "I-It's about a ten minute walk," he added nervously.

Mako gave a curt nod and turned back out of the store. Naga would have to sit tight for a while, but he'd come back for her - and he'd bring Korra with him. This time he wasn't poking in the dark, he wasn't just fooling himself into thinking she was close. This time Naga had brought him here, and he could feel it; he could feel his search coming to an end. He was so close - she was like fire dancing at his fingertips.

The first time he'd been faced with finding her, he had been scared - of how he'd feel when he saw her, and what she might say to him if she was alive - of what would happen if she wasn't. But he'd been searching for nearly six months now, and he wasn't about to let her slip away again. Whether that was because he needed the Avatar or because he needed Korra, he didn't really know. He just hoped and prayed that she was okay.

* * *

Korra felt better than she had in a long time. It was late morning and she and Shizu had slept late after a long day of working on a new fence through the largest field - a perfect size for about fifty head of cow-pigs or cow-sheep. Heck, it would do nicely for about forty head of cow-buffalo if Shizu thought he could handle that large an animal. Korra actually thought they could herd animals with Naga, once she turned up. They. Us. Words that kept popping up. Korra lay sprawled on the couch in Shizu's living room, staring up at the ceiling and thinking hard.

She knew she wasn't in love with him - _that_ feeling had taken her by the throat and squeezed until she couldn't breathe, with Mako. But this … this here was _good. _This was amazing. This was warm and safe and predictable, and this was _Tenka and Shizu_. Korra loved _Tenka and Shizu_, and through that, she supposed she loved Shizu in her own kind of way. If Mako didn't find them … if Naga came back and Mako didn't find Korra … she could stay here. She wanted to stay here.

Shizu stirred where he slept on the coffee table, and Korra turned her head to him, just in time to see the earthbender topple over the edge and hit the floor with a graceless thump. A grin flashed across her face, and then tactfully faded away. As soon as he hit the floor, Shizu sprang to a semi-wakeful state of panic and confusion.

"Huh-what-wait-," he sputtered, eyes flitting around the room.

Korra watched him until his eyes fixed on her. When they did - sweet, brown eyes - they filled with happiness, warmth; a fondness that Korra immediately recognized. He loved her. He loved her dearly, from the very bottom of his heart, and it had been a long time since someone had looked at her like that, since she'd even looked at _herself _like that.

"Morning, Tenka," Shizu slurred tiredly. Tenka. It sounded so warm, and so meant for her, but it wasn't her name. You wouldn't have thought that could change so much, but it did.

* * *

"_Morning, you," Korra drawled, padding into the kitchen in Mako's new apartment. Technically, the place was shared between the brothers, but with Bolin staying most nights with his current girlfriend downtown, the Avatar and her lover had the run of the apartment. Mako was standing at the stove, tossing noodles expertly, and Korra saw a prime opportunity to slide her arms around his waist and hug him from behind. The food in the pan smelled amazing._

_Mako laughed - he didn't laugh at much, which made it all the better when he did - softly, and turned his head to smile over his shoulder at her. "Morning, Korra," he replied breathily, happily, like her name was the best tasting thing he'd ever had in his mouth. Korra pressed her cheek to his shoulder blade and grinning, elated._

"_Smells great," Korra mumbled into the cloth of his shirt, still groggy from sleeping. "Do I have time to eat?" she added hopefully._

_Mako glanced to the clock and then dropped his gaze back to the pan. "Not really," he admitted apologetically, "I'd have woken you up sooner, but you had trouble sleeping last night so I figured you needed it," he explained calmly, dropping one hand to where hers lay draped around his middle, and then chuckled again at how soft it felt in his fingers. He noted every little thing about her that he loved - every quirk, every habit and shortcoming - and he committed it to memory; almost as if he knew he'd have to._

_Korra gave a laugh of her own. He was amazing; he was thoughtful and caring, and he looked after her better than anyone ever had - and she was the Avatar, so this was saying something - and he made sure she was always happy, and let her know when she was out of line, and … "I love you," she blurted out, grinning. It was something she didn't say quite as often as he did, because she didn't say it without thinking. She loved him, all the time, but when she said it, she really really meant it. "I love you sooo much," she added, yawning._

_Mako smiled even wider, brushing his fingertips over the back of her knuckles. "I love you too," he replied, his thumb smoothing over her warm skin. After a moment's pause, he sighed and gave a yawn of his own. "You'd best go get dressed," Mako reminded her, releasing the pan from his other hand and pointing to the clock. It showed that Tenzin would be knocking on Korra's bedroom door back at the island in roughly forty-five minutes. He kind of liked the idea that Korra was willing to get up this early just to spend her nights with him._

_Korra groaned and let go of him, stumbling tiredly to where her clothes were draped on a chair. "Wish I'd brought Naga," she complained irritably, "Then I could eat breakfast here."_

"_I'll save you some," Mako negotiated earnestly, turning the noodles in the pan and reaching for the other ingredients to his breakfast, on the counter._

* * *

Korra flashed him a reluctant smile. "Morning, Shizu," she answered, slightly reserving herself.

If it was possible, his own smile widened, and he looked tickled pink - as if hearing her say his name had just made all yesterday's work worthwhile. And then that curious look crossed his face; a look she had come to recognize, as the one that came before the questions. He seemed to catch the apprehension on her face, and he didn't ask whatever query had come to his mind. He slowly got up. "So, what do you want for breakfast?" he asked abruptly, trying to lighten the mood, as it had definitely darkened a little.

Shizu stretched his back muscles, pushing his arms up over his head and yawning loudly, moving into the kitchen.

Korra hoisted herself to a sitting position, dropped her legs to the floor, and stood up. "Whatever you got," she replied calmly, "I don't usually eat breakfast." And she followed him into the kitchen, flipping open a cupboard and giving the contents a scrutinizing once-over. Tins, tins, tins, more tins, and a carton of eggs. Well, it made a change from jerky and muesli, she supposed. Nothing like Mako's morning stir-fry, though. Shizu skillfully reached past her and whisked up the carton of eggs, bumping her playfully with his hip.

Shizu chuckled with a lighthearted smile. "Most important meal of the day, you know," he pointed out, and his voice jumped as she bumped him back with her own hip. He put the carton of eggs down and turned on the gas hob stove, reaching for some spark rocks.

Korra forced down a smile - she wasn't supposed to be happy, to enjoy like this, when so many had suffered because of her - and rolled her eyes a little. "Most of the time it's either 'eat breakfast' or 'cover ground' when I'm on the road, so I usually go with the second," she tried to sound disinterested, to dismiss the subject. She didn't want to have this conversation, not when they were so easily getting on. This would go downhill, and she wouldn't have a place to hide anymore. And this … what they had here was good.

"Mm-hmm," Shizu nodded simply, not getting the dark intricacies going through her mind, "So, scrambled or sunny-side-," but he stopped short at a sound from the front of the house. Korra felt a wave of coldness wash over her whole body, raising goosebumps on her skin, and all was silent.

Three sharp, echoing knocks on the front door shuddered across the air.

Korra felt the color drain from her face, as panicky thoughts and images burst through her mind. This had been so stupid. She couldn't believe she had stayed here while Mako gained on her at such an alarming pace. She had thought she could hide here; that somehow, it would all just _work out alright. _Stupid. She was so stupid. Korra felt her fingers start to shake. Now what? What was going to happen now? It had to be Mako at the door, ready and waiting to knock it down and come for her. Ready to make her go _back._

Korra heard a slight whimper of a noise from her own throat as she stepped back, the heel of her hand finding the counter to hold her up. Shizu looked to her, confused. The failed Avatar's free hand came up to her mouth to cover it in frenzied thought. She felt like a trapped rat, like a spider trapped under a glass. Her jaw clenched, her eyes staring into nothingness, Korra listened as the door was knocked again; three imposing, demanding knocks.

Shizu's hands clapped onto her shoulders and she jumped, eyes widening. For a moment, Korra had left herself, feeling as if it were Mako grabbing her, getting ready to sout at her like he had the night Bolin had fallen to his death. Korra felt her throat tightening, like there was a noose around her neck. "Tenka, what's going on?" Shizu asked sharply, looking a little afraid, "Who …" he paused and brought his brows down. "You know who that is, don't you?" he breathed in; taking the edge off his own words to make sure she was okay with him. She was panicking, and he didn't want her to be afraid of him.

Korra stared at Shizu, searching her mind for an explanation. What did she tell him? What was she supposed to say? Did she tell him who she was, what the man at the door wanted from her? Did she lie? _What now, _her mind screamed, a thought so fierce and cutting that it made her want to run and hide and die all at once. Her hands were trembling now, and she was breathing as if she was running, and she was _afraid. _She was **terrified**. Korra just stared at him, her mind stumbling over the terror thrumming in her veins, coursing through her body. "He's … looking for me," she managed weakly, her eyes fixed on his, begging.

Shizu blinked at her, and then swallowed. He gave a brief nod. "We need to get out of here, then," he extended his hand, and forced a reassuring smile.

Korra didn't know, for a moment, if she could trust him. But then Mako knocked again on the door, this time louder. And Korra heard his voice. She heard Mako's imposing, booming voice as it tumbled through the house from where he stood at the door. It was him; there was no mistaking it. Mako. The concept danced across Korra's conscious mind, and she couldn't even give it logical consideration with the way her adrenaline had kicked up, with the way he had hunted her down, with the way she wanted to be away from him.

He hated her, she remembered. He hated her so much that he couldn't even look at her. He hated her _so _much. And he was right in doing so, but … it still hurt her.

"_**Hey**__, __**open up!**__" _was what Mako shouted out, sounding careful and threatening and … _wonderful … _all at once.

Shizu was staring at her, starting to panic. "Tenka, come on!" he tensed his hand where he held it out for her.

Mako hated her with every single fiber of his being - and that was like a knife through the chest, because she would never, _never_, love a man the way she loved him. She could never stop loving him, and he would never stop hating her. '_I love you', _Korra thought to herself, feeling her eyes reddening, '_I love you __**so**__ much'. _It hurt, that hate that he had for her, but she deserved it. She deserved to feel agony for the rest of her life, but she would suffer it out here in the wilderness, alone. She didn't deserve Shizu, and she certainly didn't deserve _Mako. _She didn't deserve a second chance.

She lunged her hand out and grabbed Shizu's hand, and followed him through the house to the back door. She had left her rucksack behind, in the living room, but escape was the only thing she could think about now.

They burst out into the sunlight and sprinted for the woods; from there, they could make it to the village, and Shizu planned to send Tenka on her way, along the great road he had found her on. She'd be safe as long as she was running.

Korra heard her feet thumping against the ground, the sound thundering in her ears. Mako was right behind her. If she looked back over her shoulder … would she see him? Would he be running after her, or would he be standing still? Would he shout after her? Should he shout her name? Korra felt Shizu's hand squeezing hers as they ran, and he was looking back at her, to make sure she was okay.

Korra couldn't even think about going back to Republic City - not after what she had put its people through. Not after what she'd put Mako and Tenzin and Lin and everyone through. She couldn't go back.

No matter how much she wanted to.


	9. To Crumble

Knowing where Mako was brought Korra a certain kind of surety that she hadn't had in the weeks Mako had been chasing her. Even if she knew that he was possibly only ten minutes behind her, she knew where he was. It shouldn't have made her feel at all any better, but it did. If she really tried, she could pretend that she was just Korra, and he was just Mako, and they were just playing a childish game of hide-and-seek. And when he found her, he would just kiss her on the forehead and say 'I win', with a soft, almost imperceptible smile on his face.

But then she reminded herself that he wasn't following her because he loved her, but rather because he wanted her to fix what she had broken. He would probably be rather doing anything and everything other than chasing her across the republic. He hated her. The very idea of her made him cringe. Her very presence had made this look of disgust come over him. A lot could change in two years, Korra tried to reason … but not that; that had been as clear as day.

Shizu was taking her through the woods, along a trodden, narrow path that led to a village where she could steal an ostrich horse or something to get away. Korra felt a sickly feeling of guilt crawling through her consciousness at the idea of leaving Naga behind, just to get away from Mako. But that was what it was all about, right? Running, staying away from the city, away from her failure - that was of paramount importance. Everything else came second to that. And it wasn't like Naga was lost, or alone, or hurt. She was with Mako; and he would look after her. He would keep her fed, happy, healthy - he would let her know when she was out of line. He would take care of her.

Korra felt a pang of jealousy washing over her, but she shook it off.

"There it is, up ahead," Shizu pointed forward, as the overhanging leaves and branches opened out onto the pure blue sky, where clouds of deep, dark gray began to loom on the horizon. Out in the center of the grassy stretch before them, Korra could see the tile roofs of a village popping up above a slight crest. Her way out was just a minute's walk forward. Shizu pulled her onwards. There would be carts heading west, Shizu had said while pulling her through the woods. She had remembered that bit, even though she'd drowned out most of the other things he'd said.

Shizu didn't know that Naga was with the man following her, only that she couldn't wait around for her polar-bear dog anymore. Running came first. Korra felt strange, mixed feelings about that being the single, clear and honest fact that a perfect stranger could know about her. Fleeing, always evading and hiding, it wasn't her. It was nothing like Korra, the Avatar.

'_Except that I'm __**not **__the Avatar,' _Korra's mind whispered earnestly, like a mother explaining to a child, and then the cynical harshness of her shame kicked in. _'I botched that up two years ago,' _it continued.

And the painful part was that it was completely and undoubtedly true. Avatar Korra was a bad memory to most of the world, and a stupid dream to the few that could still muster a kind word for her. And to Korra herself … 'Avatar Korra' was a past that she could never get back. It was a wonderful, idyllic memory filled with happiness and love - dear spirits, _love _- and friendship. It was a _when _and a _where _in which the things that went bad could always be fixed. 'Avatar Korra', to the ex-Avatar herself, was like the way any given person remembered their childhood; with sunlight shining through leaves on trees, and wooden swing sets, and parents swinging them around by their hands in the summer.

But now the leaves on the trees were shriveled, and the swing sets burnt, and the parents … _Korra's_ parents thought their daughter was dead.

Korra didn't know she had clenched the hand around Shizu's into a fist until he slipped out of her hold and suppressed a hiss, looking at her suspiciously. They were walking to the village at a brisk walk, both hustling and trying to remain unsuspicious. Korra flashed him an apologetic look, and he just waved it off. She could read his mind in his expression. _'It's all right. I know you're stressed.' _It wasn't because she just knew him _that well, _but rather because he wore his heart on his sleeve. He wasn't like Mako. She didn't have to work for the love and the acceptance. He just liked her because, well, he thought she was pretty, and he didn't see all that many other girls. Not that Korra deserved to be picky or anything.

Not that Korra deserved _anything _in general. Least of all Shizu.

They ambled into the village, Shizu looking around hopefully for his friend who owned the traveling carts, and Korra looking around anxiously, nervously, for Mako. He could be around any corner, any turn. He could be right behind her. He could be lost in the woods. Korra didn't know if she were worried or hoping that had happened. She needed to be away from here. She needed to be gone. Korra couldn't go back to the city.

Republic City was the grave of that wonderful past, wasn't it? It was where Bolin was buried, where that perfect, perfect life with Mako had ended - and where bending, and everything she knew about herself, her purpose, her _life … _had just crumbled to pieces. Why? Because she was a horrible, weak, pathetic excuse for an Avatar. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of people were dead and worse because of Korra. She would never get that world back, and she didn't deserve to, either.

There was a flash of white in the corner of her vision. And then a loud, unmistakable bark. Korra's head snapped up, and she saw familiar eyes staring at her from the center of the dirt plaza.

Naga. Naga! Korra felt her stomach knotting up, for some reason, and her cheeks puffing with a huge, happy smile that burst out on her face. "Naga!" she shouted out, and her arms, where they had been flopping at her sides, came up and out and reached for her animal friend. The polar-bear dog leapt up from its spot in the middle of the village and thundered toward Korra. Shizu shouted out, but Korra didn't care. Naga, Naga, Naga!

Korra felt the wind knocked out of her chest as Naga hit her front and the ground her back, but her arms wrapped around Naga's neck and hugged on tight. The polar-bear dog licked happily at Korra's face, giant paws either side of the ex-Avatar's head. "I missed you so much!" Korra laughed out, squeezing her eyes shut and gripping Naga's fur. She was safe now.

Safe, she thought. Warm, too, with Naga standing over her. This was home now.

Shizu was watching the scene with a look of pure, unadulterated confusion scrawled across his features, right up until a phrase was yelled out by some bounty hunters approaching - a phrase that had been skittering at the edges of his mind for the past four days. It was a phrase he had forced out of his mind, afraid that his Tenka, his perfect, pretty, helpful Tenka, was … was …

"_**Avatar Korra."**_

And for a moment, everything skidded and screeched to an agonizing halt. Korra's fingers loosened on Naga's fur, and she went completely still, eyes bulging in her head. At the sudden stillness, Naga ceased in her ministrations of licks and yaps. The sound of footsteps on dirt echoed in Korra's head, and she counted the men without even looking at them. Three … five … six. Six of them. The wonderful feeling that had filled her body moments before faded away, and in its place, a choking, squeezing sensation clenched around her lungs and her heart, tugging and tightening.

The words held so much weight, like a dumbbell resting on her shoulders.

But somehow, Korra's hands - shaking, though they were - grabbed tufts of Naga's fur and pulled on them. She pulled her legs up under her and kicked at the floor until she was standing. Her back was to the bounty hunters, and she smoothed at Naga's soft, white hairs for a moment. Korra was caught. Now what? Even if she escaped - and Korra didn't know that she would - the newspapers would know where she was, and then everyone would know where she was. Bounty hunters all over the world wanted her blood, because they were paid by people with money, and people with money usually had power, and people with power were usually benders.

And a lot of benders had lost their bending lately.

_So now what_, she asked herself again. Was it death now? Maybe … maybe that wouldn't be so bad. She'd never had the guts to end it by herself, but she could stand still and let them get her, couldn't she? Naga sniffed at her calves, and Korra gripped onto the fur in her fingers again. _No. _Naga needed her, at the very least. She had to live her life out, she had to pay her penance - do something, _anything, _to make things better. But not go back. She wouldn't, _couldn't, _go back.

Shizu swallowed hard, and then opened his mouth, brows coming down. "Avatar Korra," he said slowly, quietly, and then with newfound disgust, repeated it. "**Avatar** _Korra," _he raised a hand to the side of his head, his face contorting, twisting into _horror. _"You … _used me! _You lied to me, you …" he said loudly, angrily. Hatefully. Shizu and Tenka had never existed. Korra vaguely remembered him telling her how he'd gotten his farm. Inheritance money.

Someone close to him had died, leaving a lot of money to him. She'd bet anything that person had died in Republic City, two years ago.

A hand snapped out and grabbed the back of Korra's shirt, tugging her back and spinning her around. Korra was caught surprised - she hadn't felt this much adrenaline since Amon's power play in Republic City, and the was having some kind of panic attack, she was sure - as she gripped the floor under her leather shoes, and took a sharp step backward. Shizu was staring at her, and the bounty hunters were behind him, and Naga was bridling a growl. But she wasn't surprised anymore; she'd been on too many battlefields to be surprised at the next thing that happened. Shizu's hand went back, and went flat, and came flying at her face. And Korra didn't stop him.

His wide palm stung across her cheek, and exploded in her ear, and threw her head to one side. Her steadiness wavered, and her mind jumped in her head, and because she did nothing, Naga did nothing too. Shizu stood in front of her, panting hard, on the verge of screaming. He was feeling pain, probably. Pain she had caused him, like most people in the Republic. A bounty hunter behind him smacked him on the shoulder in agreement.

Korra turned her head back to Shizu, and looked him in the face. Her brows were up, apologetic, but this time he met it with a look of pure hate, a look that would have terrified some. Korra had gotten this look from the man who had meant most to her in the world - and getting it from an almost stranger was nowhere near as painful. And Mako … as much as he hated her, he had never hit her. Was that good or bad, Korra wondered.

"You …" Shizu breathed out, grunting like an animal, "You _piece_ of **garbage**!" he clenched his fists at his sides, and the bounty hunter behind him tightened the hold on his shoulder; probably because their job was to bring Korra to wherever she was wanted alive. A crowd was gathering around, and Korra knew she wasn't going to escape. "You're the reason … _**you're**_ the reason my … my sister is _dead_," his voice shook, and it was clogging up with tears.

The crowd began to clamor in support, some shouting out. The bounty hunters began to look at one another challengingly, and Naga began to work her way between Shizu and Korra. The failed Avatar gripped Naga's fur, wanting nothing more than to jump on and run away, but her eyes wouldn't obey her. They were jumping from Shizu, to the other people - people who had lost loved ones because of her. Part of her wanted to stay and take what was coming to her, what she deserved.

A bounty hunter - in a long trench coat, with even longer rope wrapped around his torso - grabbed Shizu and threw him backward, away from Korra and through the crowd. "Enough," the bounty hunter began, brows down and face serious. "It's time to go," he ground his jaw for a moment, and then lunged for the ex-Avatar like a jack in the box. Naga leapt out for the attacker with her claws out and her teeth bared. A flash of crimson blood crossed Korra's vision.

After that, the entire crowd jumped for her. Naga got in their way every single time. A knife buried itself in Naga's side, and she yowled out, but continued to protect Korra, claws swinging and teeth snapping. It was happening too fast, and there were just _too many _of them to get away. And people were getting hurt here. Naga sputtered as a second blade cut through her skin, and Korra felt her lungs burst out through her mouth.

"**Naga**! _**Stop**_!" Korra suddenly screamed out, and Naga came to a halt, even as the bounty hunters came near again. Naga went as still as ice, and then slowly turned her great head to her master. Red slashes of color streaked across her beautiful, white coat. Blood shed for Korra, to protect her. "It's okay," Korra heard herself say, and she'd made the decision long before she really thought about it. Hands were smacking out to grab her, but Korra stayed perfectly still. She didn't want to see any more blood shed for her - least of all, Naga's.

Shaking, hesitating, Korra put her wrists out in front of her, and lowered her eyes. Naga howled out in protest, understanding what Korra was doing, and pushed herself up on her hind legs a bit.

"I said _**stop it!**_" Korra repeated, and this time she heard her throat clogged, and she couldn't see properly because her eyes were filled with saltwater. A rope tethered itself around Korra's hands, and slowly, the bounty hunter on the other end of it slowly inched over and tightened the rope around her wrists. Naga whined under her breath, and opened her mouth to cut the rope with her teeth. _"__**No,**__" _Korra squashed her eyes shut, "Go away. Just **go **now!"

Naga looked hurt, confused, lost, but Korra didn't see it. She was keeping her eyes shut, because if she opened them, she would cry.

Korra continued, knowing her friend was there. **"**_**PLEASE NAGA, LEAVE!" **_she cried out this time, and when the words were out, she crumbled.

Naga could have shot up onto hind feet, claws swinging, a feral roar exploding out into the air … but she didn't. She shrank down, and lowered her head, and moved after Korra, as they started to pull her into the center of the town, chanting, chanting '_burn, burn, burn' _with little guilt apparent in their voices. Korra breathed in, slowly, and then forced the air out quickly. The tears in her eyes subsided, and she forced them open. This was her penance; her price to pay. She would face it like an Avatar; with humility and acceptance.

An arc of fire burst open like a firework before Korra, burning her vision for a moment and forcing her eyes shut again. The tight pull on her wrists went away - the rope burnt through. For a second, she thought they couldn't wait another minute to execute her, and that they weren't even going to build a stake to burn her at. The people around her shouted out, some of them screaming, and some of their clothes catching fire. Korra's head whipped around, confused, and scared.

Some of the fire burnt out in mid-air, and the shape behind it was so fast, so sharp, so _desperate … _that it reminded her of herself.

Fire sent bounty-hunters sprawling backward, and there was no regard for any of the people who had crowded around the ex-Avatar. A weak, hopeful splash of water tried for a hit at the firebender, but it was quickly snuffed out, with a threatening - hateful - roar. The waterbender went flying backward, his shirt on fire. Korra could see very little through the orange flames, and she thought, hoped, for a moment that it was him. That it was Mako. But it couldn't be. That would be too … convenient. Things like that didn't happen, and if they did, they were not deserved by _her._

Naga curled around Korra, whining out in pain, blood slipping down her fur, and Korra felt her entire body aching to take the pain away, to take it on herself.

A hand suddenly clawed through the fire and grabbed onto Korra's arm, just above where the rope was now loose around her wrist. She gasped, eyes widening, fixed on her arm, but the fire faded away then, and she could actually see. The crowd was pushed back into a large circle. The light neutralized, and so did the image before her. She didn't know what she'd been expecting, but the image of a completely expressionless, familiar face, cut through her like a million arrows.

Mako.

He was taller, and he was paler. He looked like he hadn't slept a minute in the time they'd been apart. His eyes, his swimming, amber eyes pierced into hers and tore her mind into shreds, as if he were trying to tell her something telepathically. Mako's fingers were cool and dry - she could tell even through the fabric of her long-sleeved shirt - and they were so tight that she was losing feeling her own fingers. He was wearing the rucksack she had left back at Shizu's house, as well as his own traveling pack, but she didn't notice any of that, though. He had her trapped, in more ways than one.

His face twisted a bit, his brows came down, and his grip tightened on her arm. And his voice, his raspy, familiar voice, ground out; "We need to get out of here."

Korra was staring like an idiot at him, but Naga was smart. She threw her jaw open and grabbed Korra by the shirt, massive fangs piercing the fabric and gripping he ex-Avatar without hesitation. Mako was fast, cool under fire as he'd always been, and he grabbed hold of the stirrup on Naga's saddle as she threw herself forward, a little choppily with the blades stuck into her. The polar-bear dog broke into as fast a gallop as she could reach without further injuring herself, and Mako kicked himself up into the saddle, gripping the fur instead of the reins, as they had slipped through the saddle in the riot.

Korra was thumped, hard, against the ground a hundred times as Naga ran before the feeling, the sounds, all faded away. She was lost, she was prisoner … and at the same time … she was home.


End file.
